If obese passenger requires two seats on an aircraft who should bear the cost?

If an obese passenger requires two seats on an aircraft, who should bear the cost?

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Mapache

Mapache

Coronel
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Jan 16, 2002
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Barbara Hewson, 63, was offered damages by Virgin Atlantic after suffering a blood clot, torn leg muscles and sciatica following a flight to Los Angeles in January 2001, the UK's Press Association reported.
She said the woman passenger [sitting next to her] was so large she had to sit with the arm rests up, but when she complained, the crew said there was nothing they could do as the plane was full.
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Here's the poll question:
If an obese passenger requires two seats on an aircraft, who should bear the cost?
 
Mapache said:
Here's the poll question:
If an obese passenger requires two seats on an aircraft, who should bear the cost?
Click to expand...

I don't see the poll (but maybe I'm replying too fast ?)
But IMO the passenger should pay for 2 seats in this case.

Edit : I was too fast :)
 
I think the obese woman should be forced to pay for the extra seat. It is not the airlines fault that she is obese, and the airlines make there money by selling tickets to their aircraft, if they start giving people extra seats, they lose their max passenger capacity and lose money. The women should pay for an extra seat or a first class seat which is wider.

Edit: lol AVN you beat me, and I too didn't see the poll option.
 
The passenger should pay the cost, why on earth should the airline? Its not the airlines fault that they are obese and thus require two seats......
 
The fat person has to pay. No discussion for me.
If you don't fit in a chair, you have to pay for two. I think I would go insane if I entered the airplane, found my seat and saw that somebody needed a part of my seat...
 
The obese person, of course.

Moreover, should the obese person fail to indicate that he or she needs two seats when buying the ticket, and are no free seats he or she can be charged for when turning up at the aircraft, he or she shouldn't be allowed to enter the plane.
 
The passenger should pay for however many seats they require. I'm waiting for an imaginative attorney to invoke the Americans with Disabilities Act on this one, though.
 
I guess the airlines should be allowed to choose their customers, just like any other business. Who pays for it is really up to the airline, and the passenger may then react to that in accordance with the rules of the free market.

I, however, would find it unfair if I as a passenger were to pay for the choices of lifestyle made by other passengers.
 
As long as the seats have an acceptable size for all but the extremely fat people it should be the passenger, of course. However, the airline should be required to inform people how big you can be at the maximum to use their services. Or there needs to be a standard minimum size for seats (maybe there is one). The latter also concerns tall people, by the way...
 
If you fly with JAL or other company that stuffs the seats very tight, and are tall, you already have to pay extra to get a 1st/business class seat with more space, instead of the economy class seat you'd otherwise been able to take.
 
The passenger should bear that cost, though I also think that airlines should be allowed to refuse them.

Sidenote: I once sat next to a huuuuge human in the cinema. It was nasty.
 
If a passenger is travelling with bulky medical equipment (like a respirator) that cannot be stowed, how is this handled? I know that children above a certain age or size require the purchase of a full seat. I think there may be a precedent in place somewhere.

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that it is the passenger's responsibility.

However, what is the actual contract of a ticket? If a ticket is basically to rent a certain space on a plane for the duration of a trip, then the people need to get as many tickets as they need. However, if a ticket is an agreement for providing carriage from one airport to another then the airline needs to accomodate the needs of passengers without discrimination, within the bounds of airline safety.

I think the most legally important value here is not the protection of airline profits, but the equal protection of the law. I don't know if ADA applies to obesity. Nor do I know if airlines would be considered to have done due dilligence by accommodating 95% of the population. If accommodating those final 5% presents an unreasonable finiancial hardship (which it sounds like it does) then airlines may argue that any law that forces them to accommodate those 5% constitute a 'taking' and thus they may be entitled to compensation from the government.

Probably the most reasonable policy is for airlines to have a medical accommodation policy that provides an extra seat for a extra charge that defrays the cost of such accommodation without placing the entire burden on the passenger. I don't believe that the airline should be given free reign to discriminate against any group of passengers just to protect their profit margins. Nor do I believe that people requiring special accommodation should be completely free from responsibility if the other party (in this case the airline) has already done their part to reasonably accommodate 95% of the population.
 
If airlines gave potential passengers notice of seat dimensions and stated that extra large persons either need to pay for first class (larger seats) or buy a second seat, then it would be the passengers responsibility. Until that occurs, it is the airlines' problem.

If they would go back to the seating space of twenty years ago and quit overbooking flights, it wouldn't be such a problem. Even skinny people are crowded on a plane. If you recline your seat, you will inconvenience the person behind you. If you want to read anything larger than a cheap paperback, you won't have elbow room. The flight attendants keep getting thinner because the aisles keep getting narrower; even so, some have trouble getting down the aisle without bumping passengers. Beverage carts on domestic flights are only about half as wide now as they used to be. Have you tried to get an approved child safety seat to fit properly in an airplane seat? Grrrr!!! :mad:
 
you eat Hamburgers all day - you pay!

exceptions for medical conditions. There, the medical insurance company should pay.
 
The passenger should pay, but there must also be a law regulating the size of the seats.
 
I think there are laws that say all people shoul be dealt with equally.

So, we can simply shift it doen to another question:
What does an airline company sell?

-Seats?
-Passenger flights?
 
Stapel said:
I think there are laws that say all people shoul be dealt with equally.

So, we can simply shift it doen to another question:
What does an airline company sell?

-Seats?
-Passenger flights?
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Yep, that's what Pirate also said. And that's also why it is too easy to say the passenger has to pay. In the first case there needs to be a definition for a seat (you gotta know what you buy) and in the second the airline would have to provide him an acceptable (in health as well as dignity terms) way of transportation.
 
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