Debate: Overweight people and airplanes

[BZ_Zorro]

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this is not true. In some cases (although not the majority) obeisity is caused from genetics or disease.

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If by disease you mean mental illness, I agree.

Otherwise, it's easy: The only way to gain weight is to put more food into your body than it uses. Everything else is irrelevant.

So eat less or exercise more. This is as basic as it gets.

BTW, some of these people you talk about have gastric surgery...which reduces the amount of food they get in their stomach. This doesn't change their genetics or any cure any disease, it just reduces the amount of food they can shovel down their gullet.

[Siegmund]

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3 Questions, some stray off topic.

Should you force an overweight person to buy two or more seats on an airplane to accomodate abnormally large size, or do you allow them to squeeze into one seat and ruin 2-4 other peoples' flight?

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That first one is a bit more loaded of a question than the others.

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When going on an airplane flight are you buying space or a seat for yourself, regardless of how much space "yourself" occupies?


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For yourself. The airlines have chosen to price their fares "per person" rather than "per pound" or "per inch". Unless they state otherwise in their policy before you buy the ticket, it's their job to deliver the product you bought from them.

So, to return to the first question, it should be *the airline's obligation to provide enough space for each passenger* - no, they shouldn't ruin two other people's trips by crowding them; they should accommodate them according to their size, and in extreme cases that may well mean the airline providing a second seat to someone who has paid for only one.

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Would you consider policy forcing some to buy multiple tickets a form of discrimination? (for that matter, do you consider being highly obese a legitimate disability like paraplegia, blindness, mental retardation, etc)

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If it's a clearly stated policy, then, no, I don't think it should be illegal, though it may well be very unpopular. On small commercial aircraft (2- to 10-seaters) you WILL step onto a scale in front of an airline employee and be told where to sit and where to place your bags to distribute the weight correctly. I have sometimes been asked to estimate these weights when making a reservation.

For better or worse - and mostly for worse - airlines have shown a concern for customer service on only one occasion in the past ten years - from roughly October 2001 to January 2002, when the staff went out of their way to make everyone enjoyed their trip enough to fly again despite their fears. As soon as the seats started to fill, we became cattle again.

Their concern for what is "average" or "fair" is nicely illustrated by their recent change in baggage allowance from 70 to 50 pounds - it is almost impossible to fill a full-sized suitcase and NOT exceed 50 pounds. It was a rare occasion I ever came close to 70, but routinely had 52 or 55. I now have to make a practice of putting light space-fillers (empty small bags inside full large ones, so far, I havent been forced to actually use bubble wrap!) to keep the items I atually want to take from shifting.

But the baggage rules, and the nonsensical "security" measures, and a few other things like that, are separate rants I'll save for another thread.

[Bez]

Fatties should pay extra or stop eating so many pies.

[blackize]

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For yourself. The airlines have chosen to price their fares "per person" rather than "per pound" or "per inch". Unless they state otherwise in their policy before you buy the ticket, it's their job to deliver the product you bought from them.

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Im not exactly sure how it is worded, but since I can remember I have heard it called buying a seat. If you buy a seat but don't fit in it properly then you are causing problems for anyone sitting next to you and it may be a safety risk.

The airlines should do like the fatties have been doing with cheeseburgers. If one isn't enough why not have two?

Why stop there? I mean if we are going to charge people for being irritating to other passengers there are whole bunch of things that piss me off when we fly.
1. People with babies.
2. People who talk to you when you dont want them to on planes.
3. People who get up to go to the washroom frequently.

All of these things make people uncomfortable and we should charge them more. Hell what if I am uncomfortable flying when there are more then 10 arab people on the plane. Maybe all extra people who are middle eastern should be charged for making other passengers uncomfortable.

Hell maybe stewardesses/stewards find that men are more effort then women lets charge them more.

If you allow price discrimination at one level there is no reason to not allow it at others. The one exception is if someone is so large as to make the use of the seat beside him impossible. Then he is implicitly costing the airlines money.

[Scotch78]

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It is a medical condition, but one that is caused solely by lack of willpower.

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That's not entirely true. I have no idea what percentage of people this would apply to, but there are glandular problems that can cause obesity.

Scott

[MelchyBeau]

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If you allow price discrimination at one level there is no reason to not allow it at others. The one exception is if someone is so large as to make the use of the seat beside him impossible. Then he is implicitly costing the airlines money.

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I think that was the OPs point. A person taking up an additional 1/3 of an airplane seat is infact making it impossible for a person to sit in that seat. These seats on airplanes aren't exactly the roomiest ones ever

[hicherbie]

its not really discrimination if they take up more space on the plane, which is what you are paying for.

[theben]

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Fatties should pay extra or stop eating so many pies.

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lol

[superleeds]

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That's not entirely true. I have no idea what percentage of people this would apply to, but there are glandular problems that can cause obesity.

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No. Obesity is caused by consuming more calories than you burn. It's that simple. The glandular problems you refer too are probably the very few people whose mechanisms for telling the body it is satiated are compromised. For the rest, and that is almost all obese people, it's because their eat too much and exercise too little.