I was involved in a rather unpleasant incident on
a British Airways flight from Aberdeen to Heathrow
recently. (1) The aircraft was an Airbus A319 with
a single economy (coach) class cabin which was
fitted with seats with a width of 17.0" (2) and
the aisle seat I was allocated was located next to
a grossly overweight gentleman, whose considerable
girth was overflowing onto my seat, thus
preventing me from putting the armrest down or
fastening my seatbelt. I therefore challenged the
man and here is the gist of the ensuing
confrontation:

Me: Excuse me, you appear to be sitting on part of
my seat, would you be kind enough to move over so
I can sit down?

Overweight Passenger: I'm sorry, but I'm as far
over as I can get.

Me: Then may I suggest you move somewhere else
where there are two free seats together?

Overweight Passenger: Well, I don't think there
are any left. If only they made the seats bigger
there wouldn't be a problem.

Me: Well the seats seem big enough for everybody
else and the fact is, there is a problem and that
problem is that I paid over two hundred and fifty
quid for a seat that is being partly occupied by a
great sweating pile of flab, so what are you going
to do about it, pieface?

Overweight Passenger: Well, if you are going to
take that attitude…

Me: Yes I am going to take that attitude - I think
I'm entitled to under the circumstances, don't
you? I mean how much money did you contribute
towards the cost of my seat? That's right, not a
penny. So what makes you think you are entitled to
sit on part of it then, eh?

At this juncture a stewardess came up and asked if
she could help so I politely explained the
situation and asked her to displace the overweight
passenger so that I could duly take my seat.
However, she said that the plane was full and
suggested that I take a jump seat instead.

Naturally, I refused to sit on a tip-up seat at
the front of the cabin being stared at by the rest
of the passengers like I was some naughty
schoolboy who'd been told to stand in the corner
of the classroom as a punishment - what, just so
that some greedy fat bloke could sit in the seat
that I'd paid over £250 for? I don't think so!

By then, the plane's engines were being wound up
and the aircraft was clearly ready to push back
from the gate. The stewardess started to get
really anxious then because all passengers must by
law be seated with belts fastened while the plane
is taxiing, so she went into the cockpit.

She reappeared a minute or two later, and said to
me that she was very sorry, but since I was last
on board the captain had instructed her to offload
me and explained that the ground crew would rebook
me onto the next available flight, unless I was
willing to take a jump seat, of course.

I suggested that it might be more appropriate, all
considered, for the oversized gentleman whose
blubber was spilling all over my seat to get the
naughty chair, but she was afraid that jump seats
were not designed to accommodate people of his
size.

So, given that the flight was only an hour and a
half long, I reluctantly strapped myself into the
jump seat and resigned myself to an uncomfortable
journey watching old Five Bellies lolling around
on my seat, scoffing airline grub and guzzling
down bottle after bottle of complimentary booze.

To my mind, there is something fundamentally
unjust about people of normal weight having to
make sacrifices for the fat on planes. After all,
99% of people who are overweight are so because
they are greedy and lazy, not because they have
some medical condition. (3)

When I got back, I visited British Airways'
website to check what their policy on seating the
fat is. This is what it says:

"British Airways offers its customers the ability
to book an extra seat. There are many reasons why
a customer might book an extra seat, the most
common are for...Personal comfort – The customer
requires more space than one seat provides, due to
oversize..." (4)

You will note that booking an extra seat is merely
an option - it's not compulsory. However, it's a
whole different ball game when it comes to
baggage. If your hand luggage exceeds certain
dimensions and cannot fit into the cradle at
check-in, you are obliged to check it into the
hold - which is something many airlines now charge
for. (5)

Surely the same principle should be applied to fat
passengers? If they are unable to fit into a
cradle measuring the dimensions of a seat, they
should be made to pay for two seats or otherwise
be refused boarding.

Thank you.

(1)

P1 EGGLESTON/BRIANMR ADT G 30MAR09 * GBP 251.50
ABZ BA LON 217.00J1FL GBP217.00END
FARE GBP217.00 TAX 10.00GB TAX 10.00UB TAX
14.50YQ
TOT GBP251.50
S1 FB-J1FL B-1PC
T S1/CBA/ET

BA 1309 MONDAY 30 MAR 09
--------------------------------------------------
------------
BRD TIME T D/I OFF TIME T D/I FLY/GROUND EQP E
ABZ 1405 D LHR 1535 5 D 1:30 319 E
--------------------------------------------------
------------
TOTAL FLYING TIME ABZ - LHR 1:30
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A319

(2) http://www.seatguru.com...

(3) http://www.nhs.uk...

(4) http://www.batraveltrade.com...

(5) http://www.britishairways.com...

There is a sense of entitlement that I think you
freely admit, comes with your ticket purchase,
which I don't think is neccessarily practical in
all situations. Courts deal with nit-picky stuff
like this all the time, and the outcome usually
comes down to what a "reasonable person" would
expect from a given service.

While I truly do sympathise with your situation,
it is my view that the cost of your ticket does
not guarantee a comfortable journey, it guarantees
passage (and possibly a meal) which you did
in-fact receive.

The reason why I feel this way is as follows --

1. I accept that we live in an imperfect world
with traffic jams, bad weather, stupid call-centre
employees and short-sighted decisions. It is, by
definition, unreasonable to expect that you'll get
everything you want the way you want it all the
time, even if you pay for it.

2. It stands to reason that we can derive from
your perspective that if what was disturbing your
journey was a screaming baby, rather than a
fat-man's fatness, you would insist the screaming
baby be silenced or removed from the plane. No
reasonable person, fit for interaction in an
imperfect society, would ask this.

3. It is wrong to assume that all fat people can
help being fat, but choose not to. For many, that
is the case, but we can't use that as a basis of
assumption.

Now, many airlines are requiring overweight
passengers to book two seats, and this is to
mitigate complaints from customers like you whom,
frankly, I do think got a sh*tty deal. But BA
does not have this policy in place, that
information was made available to you in advance
of your flight, and you boarded the aircraft
anyway, so you got exactly what you paid for.

Because this is a great topic and I don't want to
see it get stale, I'd like to add the following.

If you want to be angry because a fat man spoiled
your trip -- go right ahead!

If you want to complain to the fat man that he is
too fat a man to be doing this to you -- go right
ahead!

These things put you well within your rights, as
far as I'm concerned. I'll leave it to the rest
of the world to judge your manners.

The issue here is of obligation, specifically that
of the airline. I reaffirm that the airline does
not owe you a single thing, as they have followed
their policy appropriately. As expensive as
tickets are, only a fool would believe in this day
and age that airlines are profitable in any sector
and I promise you that reducing capacity by
installing wider seats will destroy an industry
already suffocating under fast-rising costs of
doing business and negative public attention. So,
then, the airline has the option of downloading
the costs to the consumer.

In theory, they could insist the fat man buy a
second seat before boarding. By doing that,
however, they are guaranteed to lose his business,
and that of their other fat passengers. By not
doing that, they are at risk of possibly pissing
off as many passengers (assuming one neighbouring
every fat passenger), but with no guarantees of
lost business. What, as an airline executive,
would you do?