United Airlines' Fat Fee

[marmar]

from CBC News:



UA to charge obese flyers for 2nd seat

Last Updated: Friday, April 17, 2009 | 1:58 PM ET


A major U.S. airline said this week it would begin charging passengers who cannot fit into a single seat for a second space on its flights.

United Airlines said men and women who cannot squeeze into an existing seat on sold-out flights will be told they either need to wait for another plane with empty seats or purchase a second seat to accommodate their bulk.

The new rules apply to anyone flying after April 15.

Basically, if you cannot buckle your seatbelt or put down your armrest, a United Airlines flight just became more expensive, according to the new guidelines.

"If no unused seats are available on the ticketed flight, then the customer must either purchase an upgrade to a cabin with available seats that address the above-listed scenarios, or change his or her ticket to the next available flight and purchase a second seat in addition to the one already purchased," said United Airlines' Web site.

United Airlines said it implemented the policy to align itself with what other airlines do. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/04/17/overweight-united-airlines.html

[LakeSamish706]

1. Sorry, but I don't think that this is unreasonable! The only thing that is bothersome...

is how tightly they have made the rows in these planes over the years.

[amerikat]

2. I'm thin. Can I get a discount on the price?

The average airline seat was meant to seat Hobbits. IMHO.

[TankLV]

14. that's what I want, too

oh, wait - that was over five years ago - now I can do a good Alfred Hitchcock impression when I walk past my mirror on the way to the shower in the morning...!!!

daaaa, dum de dumpity, dum dum dum...

daaaa, dum de dumpity, dum dum dum...

...but - as to the topic of this thread... oh, no, Not This Shit Again!!!

[DefenseLawyer]

3. I'm not feeling the outrage.

If I just didn't want someone to sit next to me and wanted two seats just to have the space, does anyone think I should get the second seat for free? Trying to charge me for the use of one of their nasty pillows, that's an outrage.

[Bobbieo]

4. I'm so grateful my flying days are over.

[HillbillyBob]

5. I have not gotten on a pain err plane since 1996 or 97

the main reason is that I m avg size 5'9" 175 pounds and every time I got put next to some one at least 240 who overflowed into my seat crowding me, then there was the brat behind that kicked the back of my seat from Miami to Orange County Ca. or Ft Laud to Seattle. Whether it is because you are just overweight from poor diet or you have a 'gland' problem does not matter to me, I paid for a whole seat and would like the use of it for my comfort, hell I can't smoke while on a plane I'll just drive.

[BlueJazz]

6. Yes Sir...Just go to the White vehicle and we'll do the rest.

[customerserviceguy]

8. Are you as tolerant of the color of a person's skin

as you seem to be over the amount of it?

[BlueJazz]

9. People kid me about some things...People kid other people about some things.

Normal, skinny or Fat people are and should be treated the same as anybody... in my Book.

If they are treated any differently then they are not part of a Society....and that would be Sad.

[TankLV]

15. when I was younger, I was so thin that when I turned sideways, I used to dissappear

talk about an inferiority complex...

now I do a good Alfred Hitchcock impression - see post above...

[customerserviceguy]

7. It's interesting to see

how the airlines have shrunk seats about as fast as the trash compactor on "Star Wars" was closing in on Luke, Han, Leia, and the Wookiee, but large people are the ones getting the blame for the situation. Once upon a time, the seats were wide enough.

Still, there's a reasonable compromise. Larger folks (and anyone wanting a bit of comfort) should be able to find other folks in a similar situation, and the two of them could pay for three seats, keeping the one in the middle empty. My lady and I are both larger people, and we try to work this every time we fly, by her taking an aisle seat, and me taking the window. Sometimes, some poor unlucky person ends up sitting between us, but when they come down the aisle looking for a seat, they avoid our row on our side of the plane.

And don't even get me started on the damn idiots who bring a "lap baby" up to two years old on the plane for free. My fat ass will only inconvenience two people at most (if I'm in the middle seat) but that damn crying baby will disturb about twenty people or more at a time. Babies get zero benefit from travel experience anyway. They ought to charge them double!

[dana_b]

17. good point

I'm not tall (only 5'7") and average weight and I'm miserable in those seats. I can only imagine being tall or a bit overweight. ANd the bitch of it is that they don't want you to get up and stretch because it crowds the aisles. It is impossible not to get up and stretch on 5-6 hour flight much less a 11+ hour flight to Europe (from the west coast).

[Fumesucker]

24. The airlines have shrunk seats because the paying public has demanded lower fares..

People will go for the low price almost every time when it comes to flying, the airlines know this and the only real way they have to generate more revenue from their very expensive planes is by putting more passengers on each plane.

We really have no one but ourselves to blame for the way the airlines are cramming in the seats.

It's interesting that the etymology of "travel" links to "travail", which means toil or labor.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Travel

[Hekate]

10. Don't we have enough threads already on how teh fatness is the problem & not the airlines?

Lots of complaints about legs bumping the seat ahead of them -- another instance of human beings who can't fit into the oh-so-rational allotted space. Strangely, no one but me is suggesting that tall people (anyone over about 5'5", apparently) should be made to purchase the seat in front of them.

But no, no -- it's all about teh fatness, and never about the airline industry's inhumane decisions about our health and safety on a coast-to-coast flight.

Hekate

[Occam Bandage]

13. That's because a tall person does not prevent anyone from sitting in the seat in front of them.

Their discomfort does not extend beyond their own.

[Hekate]

18. Here's my real point....

Clearly you haven't been reading about the discomfort of being kneed by another adult...

However, my point is as follows:

The airline industry has set us to blaming each other for the results of their business decisions re: personal space.

First they got us to accept these wretched conditions under the guise of paying lower airfares, but lower airfares are still a matter of whimsey. Then they made it much, much worse. Simultaneously the average American grew larger. Now it's made out to be the fault of passengers, not the airline industry, that personal space per passenger is scarcely enough for a slender woman little more than 5 feet tall. Now we are all fighting amongst ourselves over obese passengers, and having witnessed a few rounds at DU over the years I can tell you it gets pretty ugly.

I am only 5'4" tall and I would like to know what industry executive decided that I no longer needed any space for my knees nor indeed any space to exit my seat to use the toilet on a long flight. How is that my fault and how am I taking up too much space? But hey, it's so much easier to bitch about how my seatmate weighs too much and doesn't have the right to fly at all.

At what point are we collectively going to admit that the airline industry is manipulating us for their own benefit? As long as we fight each other over who's the most miserable and how it's all the fault of sloppy fat people taking too much space, we will never get an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights at all, much less one that is worth the paper it's printed on. Right now, NO ONE has enough space to breathe and it's neither right nor healthy.

But hey, it's all about the fat people.

Hekate

edited to change title

[Occam Bandage]

21. I'm nine inches taller than you,

and do not knee people in front of me, and certainly do not prevent the people in front of me from sitting in their seats. Now, I'll agree that seats are very close together, often to the point of discomfort. However, uncomfortable seats are not the issue at hand here, nor are airline attempts to maximize profit (which I do not begrudge them, given how little profit they make and how quickly they succumb to bankruptcy whenever the price of oil rises or disposable income drops). The problem is that some people take up two seats, and yet demand that they only pay for half the number of seats they are using.

Seats have not gotten any narrower in the past forty years. A 737 is just as wide as it was in 1967, there are still six seats abreast in the cabin, and each seat is still 17.2 inches wide. This has not changed in forty years. If a person does not fit in their seat, it is not a result of airlines cynically shrinking their seats, it is a result of the person being significantly larger than the average human. And if a person requires more than one seat (that is to say, they do not fit on a single seat with the armrests down), then that person should have to pay for both seats that they require, instead of simply taking half the seat of the person beside them. Saying that they ought get a free seat is no more reasonable than saying that a person with an exceptionally great appetite should be able to go to a McDonalds and either eat half the cheeseburger of the person next to them, or be given a free additional cheeseburger, because the single cheeseburger for which they have paid is inadequate for them.

[CrispyQ]

26. On a flight many years ago,

I dropped my pen on the floor. I could not lean far enough forward to reach the floor, so I had to wait until the man next to me vacated his seat, to retreive it. It was that or put my head in his lap. Perhaps he would not have objected to that, but I did! ;)

[jamesbolton]

31. You obviously never had a tall person behind you!

They're very annoying with the way they keep jamming their knees into your back to annoy you. As I said to the last tall jerk that sat behind me on a plane, "yes I know you're tall. You don't have to keep proving it by hurting me." He changed seats with his wife and started annoying an older woman that was sitting beside me. She was trying to sleep and would get badly startled every time he decided to push his knees hard into the back of her seat.

[TankLV]

16. Tall people DON'T bump the seat in front of them!!!

now RUDE people, of ANY size, are another thing...

[TankLV]

11. United Airlines is "fat free"?!!!

good for cholosterol, I guess...

What?!!!

You said what - fat "fee"?!!!

nevermind...

now when ever I've flown - and I've had to fly a lot on business - I can't remember a time when I've had or even seen a "fat" person spill over into my or another person's seat - I just can't believe it's that frequent an issue...

come to think of it - not too many screaming babies, either. The one I did come across - I asked the mother if I could hold it for awhile and the baby calmed down and eventually fell asleep - she seemed so frazzled with two young ones in tow like so much "baggage". Sometimmes all it takes is a little kindness...but then again I'm from Hawai'i, and we were taught all of us are "ohana"...

[Occam Bandage]

12. It's not a "fat fee," it's a "taking up two seats fee."

[PBS Poll-435]

23. -2 Princess Points

Go scrub and be nice when you can.

Welcome to DU! :hug:

[Occam Bandage]

25. And a hearty welcome to DU to you, too!

:hi:

[Dogmudgeon]

19. Don't forget the "Fat Tax" on clothing

There's a secondary benefit to calling it a "Fat Tax" -- retail chains like Wal-Mart are politically conservative and strongly anti-tax. The message sinks in.

The airlines are also treading on the proverbial thin ice themselves. They have received an enormous amount of bailout money since 2001, and some of those "immoral fatties" are taxpayers.

Punishment of the overweight has become a replacement for sexual self-reproach, especially since over half the adult population of the USA is overweight. Food has become the new Sex.

--d!

[Occam Bandage]

22. How dare manufacturers charge more for products requiring more resources to produce!

Why, next they'll be charging more for king-size beds than for twin-size!

[Dogmudgeon]

27. Cost of additional cloth: $0.05 -- Increase in price: $2.00

Satisfaction by means of self-righteous moral bloviation against overweight people: Priceless.

--d!

[PBS Poll-435]

20. I am skinny (reasonably) and cute!

I would rather drive. (And I did!) To my family reunion in Las Vegas.

Unless I have to be somewhere in a blink of an eyelash, I would rather drive.

[DFW]

28. Rather contradictory (or else clever business practice)

They will penalize you for being fat, and then serve you (when they serve anything at all)
"food" laden with fat and sugar. If you aren't fat yet, they'll do their level best to help
correct the situation.

[davidpdx]

29. Actually what is unreasonable is that some airlines are now starting to charge for checking luggage

This really pisses me off. How long before we have to pay $5 for a bag of peanuts and a soda?

[eridani]

30. Buying two seats is not always necessary

A friend of mine who weighs 300 lbs has a husband who weighs 350. When they fly, they buy three adjacent seats and leave the armrests up. Whythehell would anyone want to make them buy 4 seats?