Wildcard Weekend - In (a teeny tiny bit) Defense of “The Airlines”
OK, I’ll start right out… I DO NOT, in any way shape or form condone or defend ANY of the current BS shenanigans that are currently passing as “policy” for dealing with airplane seats for people who do not “fit” the “standard” seating on airplanes.
Pretty much every airline out there (and, please correct me if there’s one that doesn’t) has horribly discriminatory policies about “flying while fat”. Some are more politely couched as “safety” issues… some are down right hostile.
I think we can all agree… removing people from airplanes because they happen to be wider than the “average” width that the airline has calculated will fit the most people… and humiliating them in the process… well, it’s just plain wrong.
Now, I am assuming here that most readers on this site are familiar with these airline “policies”, but just in case, I’ll point you here, here, and (ESPECIALLY) here, just for a little background… go ahead, I’ll wait until you get back.
Infuriating, right?
There has to be some kind of solution to the fact that people, no matter how much the world might like them to be uniform, are NOT, in fact, uniform. We do not all take up the same amount of space.
But space is exactly what the airlines are selling. They sell us space on their airplane that is going from one place to the other place.
And they do, at the base of it, have a point… if they are selling space, and some people are using more of the space, then why should they not charge them for that space? I mean, I would never complain that UPS charges more to ship a larger mail package, so I can’t (from a business perspective, although maybe from moral one) complain that the airlines want to charge more to ship a larger ” person package”.
The major problem they are running into is the high-handed and jackass-y way they are going about making people pay for the space they are buying.
So I have come up with the following idea… and no, am not an engineer, or a designer, or anything else that qualifies me to actually IMPLEMENT this idea… but it is an idea on how the airlines could more fairly sell their space rather than just randomly deciding who gets to ride in one seat and who gets either kicked off the plane or forced to buy another, full fare seat, even if they only need, say, 2 inches of it.
So here it is…
Sell me my space on your airplane by the inch.
Right off the bat, this is going to require re-engineering the seating on planes… AND it will require some fancy software to be able to make the calculations of how to most appropriately jigsaw the sold “inch packages” into the available space. But I think that ultimately, airlines might be able to make even more money, because there are going to be people who need less space than they currently get in a “Standard seat” as well as people who want more space.
So my idea revolves basically around having, rather than individual seats… bench seating with movable, insertable, removable arm rests (and seat belts).
So I, for example, would like to have 20 inches of space to sit “comfortably” on an airplane. The standard airline seat is (according to a quick and dirty Googling) 17.5″ inches. So right there, they can sell me more than I would have bought originally, but don’t need to sell me the ENTIRE extra 17.5″ seat, it’s just a matter of sliding down the moveable arm rest.
But hey, wait a minute, what if I would like to NOT smell the breath of the weirdo beside me who has never heard of a toothbrush (or even gum for that matter)… yeah, I am ALWAYS seated next to that guy. So maybe I want to buy myself an extra 5″ to protect against the skeeve coming out of whoever is next to me, well, I can buy that too!
And let’s say, hypothetically, that I am traveling with my sister. (Which I would not be, because she has an absolute TERROR of planes). But that girl is teeny. Seriously, it’s a wonder she was ever able to give birth to 5 babies through those teensy hips. I bet she could probably, if she was feeling budget conscious, get away with buying about 12 inches of bench. And if she had her four year old with her, well, instead of buying him a whole extra seat, he could just come in at 8 inches of bench space…. leaving all those extra inches for the airline to sell to someone else, when previously they were just “Wasted” on people who had too much seat for their butts.
If seating on airplanes was sold by the inch, then people could buy as much space as they needed (or in the case of me wanting breathing space) how much they wanted, and ONLY how much they needed or wanted. No need to buy an ENTIRE extra 17.5″ when only 5″ will do. But if I want to buy the whole damn bench, I can do that too - hey, maybe I want to lay down and take a nap!
And, OK, this doesn’t sound overly comfortable… but airlines have degenerated into flying buses anyway… who says they have to be comfortable? What they need to be is FAIR… and if the business policy is drawn up to sell the space on the plane according to how much space people WANT TO HAVE on the plane, well, that sounds at least moderately fair to me.
It’s not perfect… because, yes, people who are larger are going to want to buy more inches of space, and will therefore pay more. But… at least they will actually GET what they are paying for, no more no less… and they will be choosing how much space they buy, based on how much they need, not on how the gate or ramp agent was feeling that day.
There are millions ways this would never work… and I am sure there are lots of ways that this is bad that I have not thought of.
But maybe if everyone starts thinking of weird and crazy ways to solve this airplane seating dilemma… maybe someone will strike upon something that actually COULD work, and COULD be fair to all passengers, and still make the airlines money for the service they are providing - namely, shipping me from one place to another in a teensy modicum of comfort (and, Maude help me, without having to smell the breath coming out of that guy sitting next to me).
It would be NICE if the people trying to come up with these ideas actually worked for the airlines, but since they seem comfortable in their current state of jackassery, I guess we’ll have to do it for them.
Last time I flew I was packed sardine style between what appeared to be a depressed drunk and a woman who spent the entire flight so annoyed with said drunk that she would let out loud annoyed sighs every three seconds or so.
However, it was easy for me not to get upset since I was heading MINUS CHILDREN to Vegas to meet my best friend and forty of our closest gal pals for the bachelorette party of the century.
Viva Las Vegas baby.
Did you see this week a super smelly guy got thrown off a flight too? I think they printed that story so they could be like “hey, we throw everybody who’s not perfect off. SEE!”
If they truly want to be airbusses, why not just take away the armrests in the first place?
None of the long distance bus companies (greyhound etc) have them. It’s not like you really need them for any reason. And then, there would be less complaining about “s/he is overflowing into my seat!”
But that might be too pragmatic an idea.
I agree about the armrest debacle. I find there is usually a territorial battle about who can use it. If you are in the middle you have to fight with both sides to get just one arm on. Aisle and window people at least have the guarantee on one solitary arm rest to call their own. Aisle guy/gal ALWAYS gets their arm smashed by the metal drink cart.
It’s also where the dreaded “recline” button resides. They guy in front of me usually enjoys laying in my lap for the duration of the flight.
I will say that when I’m able to, I upgrade to first class. That is like flying in the gentle padded palm of a protective giants hand. Good times.
I dunno, I haven’t flown since 1998, and that was on Northwest, from Minneapolis to NYC. Went to visit some internet friends, left just before Christmas and came home just before New Year’s Eve. Both ways the plane was almost empty, and I had all 3 seats to myself (and yes, I had to ask for a seat belt extender, and my ass was squished between the armrests, I had 60″ hips at the time). I didn’t have any problems back then, and I was definitely fat (5′ 8″ and 350 lbs), but I don’t think I would want to fly anywhere now, not with the way things have gone downhill in the last 10 years or so for fat people (and it’s definitely gotten a lot worse).
DH has a ship’s reunion coming up in September and he’s talking about flying to Norfolk, VA for it. I’m not looking forward to having to pay for 3 round-trip tickets, and if we aren’t going to be guaranteed that those 3 seats are going to be together, the airline can kiss my fat ass, we’ll drive instead. I don’t care if it will take us longer to get there, at least I’ll be comfortable in my minivan, and I can stop any time I want and get out and walk around (not to mention that rest area bathroom stalls are a hell of a lot bigger than the restrooms on the airplane). And, if we drive, I don’t have to worry about TSA making DH strip down because he set off the metal detector with his artificial knee and his titanium penile implant (yeah, I want to watch the inspector checking for that one *E G*). I can just imagine what DH would have to say if some TSA inspector told him he had to strip down and prove that he had an artificial knee and penile implants (the air would probably turn blue…………..)
That’s just too much hassle. I would definately say drive it if you can. I happen to be a big fan of taking my time and road tripping. We used to do the NY to FLA trip in the family station wagon every year. Nothing on earth can match the smell of that car after 24 hours, still haunts me.
It’s a clever idea, but I doubt it would ever (tee hee hee) fly for the simple fact that the best business models are simple ones. But who knows, maybe some startup like Jet Blue will come up with an innovative idea.
I think the important point is that we are not going to change our national girth any time soon. We are a fatter nation and until airlines and other service providers realize that fatties are here to stay, we’re going to continue to butt up against arbitrary regulations designed to “limit” our impact on their bottom line.
I expect a seachange in the attitude toward fat consumers. It seems ridiculous that despite the claims of 2/3 of the nation are fat, we’re still treated like second-class consumers. We’re expected to just deal with the fact that much of the crap we buy or services we use aren’t designed for larger frames.
I don’t expect that seachange any time soon, but I do think it will come along with the reduction of fat hatred that I anticipate in the next decade. But we’ll see.
Great piece.
Peace,
Shannon
As a fatty who just took a transatlantic trip, I totally could relate to this post. Thankfully, I was flying with a friend and we did 2 seaters all 4 legs of the trip so I didn’t have to worry about a stranger being bothered about my fatness for a 10 hour trip!
Hey, welcome back!
Flying domestically is one thing. Flying internationally is a totally different story. When my wife and I flew to Ireland a few years back it was utterly miserable. Not only is it miserable for the asshole who hates fat people, but it’s miserable for fat people in terms of comfort. Veronica was so glad to get off that plane, I don’t think she wanted to fly back home at the end of our trip.
Peace,
Shannon
My flight to Italy was a nightmarish comedy of errors. We flew Al Italia coach on the way there and had a poor elderly lady and her husband seated behind us. Sadly the wife had advanced dementia and kept hitting my mother in the back of the head and laughing hysterically….for HOURS.
The poor husband was nearly in tears with embarassment (they spoke no engligh but thankfully my mom knows some italian)and just trying to get home.
That memory was completely wiped away the second I sat down for my fifteen course meal the next day though.