Because Wednesday is boring, and I like to stir the pot.

[mijan]

The headline:
"Skinny Woman bumped off flight so overweight person could have two seats."

Yes, there were circumstances involved.  The overweight person was 14 years old and traveling alone, and had NOT purchased two seats.  However, the "skinny" person had paid full price.  Nobody was asked to voluntarily give up their seat - the skinny passenger was forcibly bumped.

What would you do?  What would Chthulu do?

Discuss.  No swearing.  Please qualify generalizations.  Rational debate preferred.  Virtual pie offered for functional suggestions.

*gets popcorn*

Comments

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

First of all, I will not fly Southwest Airlines because I'd rather not be humiliated and penalized for my size.

However, it seems that the following smart thing was done: a minor was not stranded. The following stupid thing was done: a volunteer to give up a seat was not found (Kit and I once agreed to a later flight when asked -- it happens). The only thing they may have been thinking was that the person who got bumped was flying on standby, which is a shaky guarantee of a seat anyway.

I don't believe malice was intended here and I actually have to approve of Southwest Airlines' decision to not penalize a minor.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your well-considered comment! (I'm really just trying to collect a variety of opinions on the topic, to see how people react to it.)

I think my biggest point of contention in this whole story was that they didn't ask for volunteers. Often, people are quite willing to fly later, because they get perks for waiting.

I'm curious how people's analysis of the situation would change if the overweight individual was an adult.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

This is very much a gray area. The woman who was "bumped off" did purchase a standby ticket, so if, oh, there was a seat with a malfunctioning seat belt, she wouldn't have been able to fly.

This raises a question: how did they deal with the seat belt arrangement for the obese teen? What are the seat belt laws for airplanes?

Possible solution: some wheelchairs are made for obese people, and many planes have a place to belt in a wheelchair. A wheelchair could have been provided for the obese teen or the standby passenger to sit in.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for contributing your ideas!

Seat belt extenders are available on all major airlines, so that covers that question.

I don't know if Southwest has a wheelchair spot available.

True, the woman had a standby ticket, but at that point, she'd already paid and was in her seat.

Next question - what if the obese individual was an adult? Would that change anything?

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the seat belt thing is about the extender. Southwest believes that fat people's butts shouldn't touch other people's butts, essentially. When I fly, I sit very still, choose a window or aisle seat, and sit as far away from the person next to me as possible. It's torture.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

Most of the airplanes I've investigated regarding wheelchairs, you don't get to belt in your wheelchair but rather transfer from your chair to a special narrow one and then transfer into a normal plane seat, and your wheelchair is stowed. (If you need to go to the toilet en route you have to ask for the special wheelchair again.)

Though those were transatlantic flights so perhaps things are handled differently depending on the airline/planes they use. (But I'm not sure how a fastened-in wheelchair could provide the require degree of security, since they're not designed for that purpose - there's not just the matter of fastening the chair down, but also fastening the person to the chair. In the event of a crash or rough landing or even turbulence, quite a lot of force could be put on those fastening points and the frame of the chair may not be designed for that at all.)

Regarding the actual seat belt - normally they have seat belt extenders and the problem isn't that the overweight person actually needs an entire two seats, but rather that the seats are narrow enough that the armrests have to be put up to be comfortable, and the person's legs/hips may intrude an inch or two into the other seat. It's not like they have to sit smack in the middle of the two seats to fit.

I am surprised that there was no request for volunteers, though. Maybe because she was flying standby and if they'd properly assessed the seating situation in the first place, she never would've been allowed to board because there wasn't an available seat, they didn't want to have to give out some kind of 'reward' for the person who volunteered?

[probing-grays.livejournal.com]

The petite passenger was flying standby, where getting bumped is pretty common. I don't know why the airline felt compelled to explain to this person exactly why they were bumped, given how standard a procedure it is for a variety of reasons.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

I suspect, based on the video and the article I linked, that the teenager approached the seat, and the nature of the circumstances became obvious to the passenger who was bumped. So I think she would have known exactly why she was bumped, even if the airline personnel had said nothing. She was already seated when she was pulled off the plane.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I keep waiting for some clever venture capitalist group to create an airline whose selling point is seats large enough to comfortably accommodate bigger people. But, since that doesn't seem to be happening today, here's my .02:

The article doesn't say the woman was forcibly removed from the flight, it says that they asked her to give up her seat, booked her on the next flight, and gave her flight credits. That's not uncommon when a flight is oversold or other conditions require there to be less bodies on a plane. I'd be interested in learning how this particular incident became a news article in the first place - did the bumped passenger complain?

As to the "you should buy two seats" idea, that makes a degree of sense to me, in that a ticket could be seen as representing a certain amount of space on the flight, and if you need more, you buy more. Given the size of the average airline seat, and the current trend towards airline surcharges for everything that rationally ought to be included in the ticket price, though, I'm wary of the idea. Will we someday buy our plane tickets by cubic inch?

Additionally, requiring a passenger to buy two seats limits their buying options, since you can't generally book two seats under the same name via the popular internet travel sites of the day. You'd have to call the airline, explain that you are obese, and be at the mercy of the training level of the customer service person and their attitude about fat people. Not a process I would be really enthusiastic at attempting, were it me.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Several good points. Thank you for mentioning them.

I don't think the woman was forcibly removed, but I got the impression that she was "told" rather than "asked."

At one point, Midwest Airlines had larger seats, which both my spouse and I found quite comfortable. Oh, how times have changed, in just two short years.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

You'd have to call the airline, explain that you are obese, and be at the mercy of the training level of the customer service person and their attitude about fat people.

Exactly. This is why the argument "they should just buy two seats" is bogus. The airlines make it so they can't buy two seats and then blame them when they don't fit into the one they were allowed to buy.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

The woman who got bumped had a standby ticket. I think that's an important distinction to make. I've flown with standby tickets before and I don't have any expectation of getting a particular flight. Yes, it would be disappointing to be on the plane thinking you lucked out and then be asked to wait for the next flight but it's not like she arrived at the airport that day knowing she needed to arrive on that flight and not a later one.

If I'd been on that plane with a standby ticket, (or even a regular ticket, if I was guaranteed to get on the next flight) I would have volunteered my seat.

The problem with the "those greedy fatties should buy an extra ticket ahead of time" argument that I won't be at all surprised to see is the airlines don't guarantee that the two seats you pay for will be next to each other. Seriously.

What we need is a law like in Canada, where if someone has a physical condition that makes them need two seats (and obesity isn't the only one, someone who needs a constant oxygen supply would need an open seat next to them for the tank) then the airline should be required to provide them with a seat for the same price. WHICH WOULD NOT COST THE AIRLINES ANY MORE MONEY. See my post on this topic for details but basically in order to cover the cost of giving a tiny fraction of their passengers two seats, they would need to raise ticket prices 77 cents per ticket. SEVENTY SEVEN CENTS. NOT A BIG DEAL.

I don't know if it's working this way in Canada but I expect the result would be that people could reserve an extra seat ahead of time and not have to worry about being shamed or asked to pay for a seat somewhere else on the plane that they can't even use. (I will look for references on that, I'm sorry I can't remember where I read it but it was in multiple places). And even if the airline does guarantee the seats will be adjacent, it is wrong to charge someone double because of a physical condition. Anyway, the airlines don't give you a partial refund if you only take up half the seat and they don't charge people extra for taking over the armrests.

My brother has problems with flying: he's 6'4" (and about 170 pounds, he's not fat, nor am I, for the record) and his legs are quite long. He gets a seat in an exit row whenever he can because those have a little more legroom but he can't always do that and he can't afford to fly first class. One time the person in front of him wanted to recline her seat but she couldn't recline it all the way because it was hitting his knees. He was as far back in his seat as he could get and there were people on either side of him so he couldn't put his legs diagonal. There was absolutely nothing he could do. And this other passenger threw an absolute [swearing redacted] fit. In the end, her husband convinced her to switch seats with him because the person behind him was shorter and his seat would recline all the way. But it took him a while to convince her; she insisted that she should be able to recline her seat and somehow my brother would just have to magically make his legs shorter.

I don't think being tall should mean me brother has to pay twice as much to fly or not be allowed to fly at all.

We are far too quick to blame other passengers when in fact the entire problem is that the airlines treat us like cattle and make the seats as small and cramped as they can get away with. Unfortunately, the free market isn't going to solve this because air travel is expensive enough that too many people are just going to pick the cheapest flight no matter how awful that airline is. Any airline that decides "we're going to treat our employees and passengers like human beings," is going to have somewhat higher costs and therefore is always going to lose our to the Wal-Marts of airlines. So the solution I propose is for the government to force the airlines to treat passengers better. It's the only way.

Edited to remove accidental swearword ;)

[mijan.livejournal.com]

(Not so concerned about the occasional swear-word. I was more concerned about people cussing AT people. Or using swearing to insult others.)

[themadfish.livejournal.com]

I think I really just object to the language in the article singling out that the person who was asked to leave was skinny. It's like they're trying to say this is a reverse discrimination situation which I don't think it is. The passenger was on a stand-by ticket and was the last to sit down besides the teen--that's why she was asked to leave, not because she was skinny. I think the airline was right in trying to make sure a minor wasn't stranded. I do think asking for volunteers might have been a better option. However, we don't know the full circumstance. The teen could have been feeling humilated and upset at the situation, and the airline decided to make a decision, rather than just hoping a volunteer would stand up. It would have been pretty horrible if no one volunteered.

I feel bad for the teen though. She probably didn't know she needed an extra seat, and if she didn't buy the seat herself, then whoever bought it didn't know. I don't think it's anyone's fault. It's an unfortunate situation with no good answers.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

I didn't get the impression that they were going for a "reverse discrimination" angle. However, I object to the word "skinny" as a descriptor. It has a negative connotation, and at this point, some people are using it to describe anyone who isn't fat. I mean, myself, I'm hardly skinny. I'm technically overweight, and I've had people CALL me skinny, and it's offensive. Skinny used to mean that a person was so lean it was unhealthy. Now, people of a healthy weight are being called skinny, as if to make a nasty connotation as a backlash for other people being called "fat."

But either way, I didn't get the impression they were trying to call "reverse discrimination." I simply got the impression that they were indicating that one passenger was actively bumped from a flight to give another passenger two seats (only one of which had been paid for). Do I agree or disagree with that action? I'm completely undecided, honestly. That's why I posted this. I wanted to see what other people had to say.

Hang on, something doesn't make sense

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

How come the standby passengers already boarded by the time they figured out the 14-year-old needed a second seat? Why didn't they realize that might be an issue when she checked in.

Here's my wild, unfounded speculation about why: the airline employees knew damn well she probably couldn't fit comfortably in one seat but they were too embarrassed to say anything because of the...[not allowed to swear] messed up attitudes about weight in our society. So instead of doing their job and trying to help her, they just kept quiet and hoped she would squeeze herself into the one seat and they wouldn't have to deal with it. If there were a tester seat at the gate, she could have tried it and discovered that she needed two seats and they could have booked her for two and not let that standby passenger on in the first place.

Re: Hang on, something doesn't make sense

[mijan.livejournal.com]

"How come the standby passengers already boarded by the time they figured out the 14-year-old needed a second seat? Why didn't they realize that might be an issue when she checked in."

That's what I want to know.

Also... careful with the "tester seat" suggestion. That will be met with very strong opposition for several reasons.

[foxestacado.livejournal.com]

The fact that the woman had a standby ticket makes a big difference to me. I flew standby to and from Florida (long story short, never again, too stressful!). Even though I paid for my ticket (in my case, I paid quite a bit, $320 for standby tickets, from LAX to MCO roundtrip), I knew that one of the conditions of flying standby was the fact that I am not guaranteed a seat on a particular flight. If that happened, I was told I can get on the next flight going out (12 hours later). That is simply one of the realities of flying standby. If I was bumped off because an obese child had to take up two seats, then so be it.

I applaud the airline for not leaving a child stranded. In this case, I imagine the airline had to deal with a tough situation. Whoever bought this child's airline ticket probably thought: "I know there's a size restriction for this airline, but I'm going to buy a one-seat ticket because I think we can get away with it." The airline had no way of knowing that the child needed two seats before he/she arrived at the airport.

There are lots of problems with the way airlines treat their clients, as noted in the comments. I would like to see more standardization of size restrictions on airlines. It is very understandable that people are pissed off when size only seems to be an issue sporadically. I would be pissed off if I could normally buy one seat, but then suddenly I was asked to upgrade.

I think it is a somewhat comparable situation when it comes to luggage. I make sure my carry-on luggage is within the size limits. I measured it to be sure, and also checked the airline's size limits. But there are plenty of people who take bigger pieces of luggage as carry-on, and the airline does not do anything about it until there is no room for those who are getting on the airline later. I carry a lot of very sensitive and expensive equipment in my carry-on. I *need* to have it by my side. So it pisses me off to no end that I bought the same ticket as everyone else did and yet I cannot have my carry-on luggage with me.

I'm flying economy to China in less than a week. It is a 16 hour flight. It will be uncomfortable as it is. I am also sensitive to touch. I don't like strangers touching me. While I understand size restrictions are an uncomfortable topic for some people, I also understand and support why airlines do it. However, I also support airlines doing it sensitively. I believe this particular situation yielded the best possible outcome, short of asking for a volunteer to trade seats, if standbys are not available.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your insightful reply!

A very good point about the carry-on luggage, too. I think that when it comes to airlines, at least these days, you're purchasing space. Hypothetical model here: My $300 (for example) should buy the exact same amount of space as someone else's $300 on the same flight. Just because I'm shorter, taller, thinner, fatter, carrying more luggage, or going in empty-handed, the ASSUMPTION should be that I purchased X-amount of space. Some people will put two items in the overhead bins, for example, when they're supposed to put one in the bin and one beneath their seat. That's inappropriate.

At the same time, to save money, airlines have made seating insanely crowded, even for "average-sized" people. Get to know your neighbor, huh?

Your point about not liking to be touched by strangers brings in a whole additional dimension to this. Some people have true phobias of having their personal space invaded. Granted, severe social phobias CAN'T be accommodated in public transportation, but what do you do if someone's arm is literally in your lap because he's almost seven feet tall and his elbows won't fit within the seat? So many issues... it's crazy.

I'm glad they didn't strand a child. And it's quite possible that the parents who booked the flight were trying to take advantage of the system. It's also quite possible they had no idea that their kid wouldn't fit the seat. We'll never know.

Good luck on the flight to China. :)

[mintcloud.livejournal.com]

The blunt fact of the matter is, the airline should have asked for volunteers. No ifs, ands or buts.

That's really my take on the matter, since I really don't want this to turn into a rant about encouraging obesity in America.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

How'ya doing?

[archangelwells.livejournal.com]

I see many many issues with this situation.

Now, to admit my own personal biases up front: I'm tiny, as in "I hate flying first class because the seats are too big for me to sit comfortably while the tiny seats everyone else complains about fit me just fine" tiny. I see overweight younglings as a PROBLEM, and one which 90+% of the time is not-difficultly solvable.

1) It is a problem that a 14 year old is too big to fit into one of the airline seats. Yes, I know they're tiny. But a 14 year old being that big is a *problem*.

2) However it got handled, is currently wrong. I'm not sure I know a better way to handle it, but I imagine that there is a huge chunk of embarrassment going around because of that situation, and that's not a good thing, in my book. I think the volunteer thing would be relatively ideal, but I don't know. I know that I'm almost always willing to trade seats to make others more comfortable. I did recently, when I was separating two members of a family, and that was something I initiated so that they didn't have to ask.

3) Yes, tiny airline seats are a problem. Yes, obesity is a problem. Making airline seats that fit people my size and not much bigger is not going to solve the obesity problem, and is not all that comfortable for normal size people. It's also a problem for all of those people who are simply tall, and since average height is growing, this seems to be a growing problem (pun intended, haha).

My mother has often has an argument that I can't say I disagree with. Theoretically, the reason there are limits on luggage and the like are because of the amount of weight an airplane can carry. If that is the case, then each person should be allotted a certain weight allowance (and by extension, a certain space allowance). My mother says that weight allowance should be for the person and all their luggage (carry-on too). If you need more allotted to you than the standard "one passenger" amount, then you can reasonably be charged for the overage, and given the appropriate amount of space and weight overage based on how much you pay. I can't say I disagree with the concept. I just have trouble thinking of a practical way to apply it without causing more problems than already exist.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

The passengers actually make up a tiny fraction of the total weight of the plane. If they charged people based on the difference their weight makes in terms of fuel consumption, the ticket prices would differ by pennies at most.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

The airline definitely made a mistake with this one.

I have never seen a 14 year old who legitimately could not fit into a single seat on an airplane. A snug fit? Sure. But I have had to spend flights half-wedged under the side of a 350+ adult man who had shoulders like a linebacker, and smelt of damp oyster crackers. If HE could fit into the seat, then a 14 year old who was in sufficient health to travel without a wheelchair and a medical attendant could have done so.

No overweight girl of that age would have asked for that extra seat. She would sooner have died than to call such direct attention to her condition, because if she's fat and in highschool, she is a daily torture victim, and is already probably triggery beyond belief about her size.

No, I suspect what happened, was an airline employee took it upon herself to be 'helpful' here. And in doing so has thrust this poor girl, her family, and the justifiably outraged woman who was bumped from the flight, into a spin-doctor's paradise. Fat phobes will be hammering the girl for her 'entitlement' without ever finding out what she's like, fat acceptance crusaders will be leaping into the fray bannering her name, and the airline will be penalizing future iterations of anybody whose size and form makes them inconvenient to the cause of being stacked like cordwood for maximum airplane capacity.

What should have happened; If, and only if, the skinny person complained about things, then the overweight girl's seat should have been switched with someone at the bulkhead row, which provides more room. If that was impossible, and the skinny person still wanted the fat girl somewhere other than next to her, then she should have been rescheduled, bumped up to business or first class, head of the queue, and got where she was going in added comfort, at very least. The overweight girl's family should then be notified that she would, in the future, be required to pay for the second seat, or else not fly in airplanes, and that would have been that.

What SHOULD happen; Airlines should make their seats big enough for an adult to use them. Currently, they are not. The average airline seat back is fifteen inches from side to side. The seats are no wider, and the leg room is too scant for anybody taller than four feet to endure for a flight longer than two hours. At the prices airlines are charging their clients, with the fees and all such considerations, and with the ridiculous schedules and security theatre they put us all through, allowing enough space for real, adult sized people is not too much to ask.

However, asking is not getting, alas. Which is why I fly as little as I possibly can, and will continue to avoid the airline industry until Dominus gets his pilot's license and plane. Or at least until the industry admits that what it's going to do is anesthetize all travellers, bind us into tubes, and stack us in the cargo hold like the untroublesome inanimate objects they wish we were.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

An excellent set of observations! Thank you for contributing.

I don't think the "skinny" person complained, though. At least, not complained about being seated next to a large person. I think she might have been a bit ruffled about being bumped AFTER she was seated. The details in the article aren't perfectly clean on the details.

But yes, airline seats should be wider. You know me - I'm NOT big, and I find the damned things cramped. Actually, my biggest complaint is that they don't recline enough, which causes me back pain. Heck, the airlines should stop being obnoxious to their passengers. I remember when it actually used to be fun to fly. *sigh*

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I don't think weight should even factor in. If an airline sells seats, they should be obligated to fly every paying passenger. If they oversell and there aren't enough seats, start sweetening the deal for "Who wants to fly later for X hundred dollars and Y free miles?" volunteers. If no one bites, sweeten it further. And further, until there are enough volunteers to get all other paying passengers to their destination. Per-effin'-iod.

[sgt-majorette.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the price of a seat is a function largely of the cost of fuel. If a person is big enough to need two seats, that's what they should pay for, otherwise that person's fare is being subsidized by a skinny person.

Then there's the safety issue. Small planes crash all the time from overweight; commuter flights used to quote occupancy limits in number of people until it became clear that the difference between 10 lean people and 10 fat people was the difference between life and death.

Full disclosure: at 5'8", 210lb (twice my high school weight. I eat too much and don't exercise), I have, in the last few years, been asked to move to first class on smaller commercial aircraft because these tend to be tail-heavy! Even if I had been asked to move to a worse seat instead of a better one, I can't feel that my tender feelings are more important than getting where we're all going in one piece.

[emiliglia.livejournal.com]

I'm just perturbed that a 14 year old would be that obese. I take a bus to Boston and back every week and those seats are smaller than airplane seats. There are several obese people that don't need to buy another seat to travel, so it hurts my head to think of how obese this kid must be.

Don't kids play outside anymore? Holy hell.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

Just speculating but it could have more to do with the shape of her body than her total weight. Some people just have very wide hips. She might actually weigh less than other passengers who do fit in the seats because those passengers have a different distribution of body fat. And there are some tall 14-year-olds. I was only an inch or two shy of my full adult height by age 14.

[dazi-li.livejournal.com]

Mostly? I just feel bad for the kid. Who the fuck puts a 14-year-old girl through this bullshit? It's not enough that she's flying alone and being told that she's too fat for one seat at the height of her teenage hormonal imbalance, now she's the center of a freaking media circus because some cheap thin lady is holding a grudge. If it was me, I never would've stopped crying. This girl's gotta be in shreds right now.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

This gets right to the heart of it. Good call there.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Unless the 14 year old has a clinical reason for being that big, I would call child services regarding abuse/neglect. It's a fight in today's world to enforce personal fitness, but until they're emancipated it is most certainly our job as parents to make sure we're working with them.

And I'm sure I come off as a butthead, but I work really hard at educating kids on fitness and nutrition, and now that I do counseling for kids not under my roof, I get REAL pissed when parents shrug off eating & exercise habits... it's getting exponentially worse each generation. (or may just seem so because we can keep people alive longer).

That being said, or trigger having been tripped, the 14 year old is a disabled minor, and bumping an adult for a disabled & unaccompanied minor sounds like the right thing to do. I have no issue with that. Particularly if there is still some civil right hurdle to jump where we can't require height/weight/hipgirth information before buying a ticket.

It also seems to me that if obesity is a handicap, then there should be a few wider chairs available in coach which would solve a LOT of bad press.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Interesting suggestions.

First, we can't assume that the 14-year old didn't have a health condition that caused the obesity, and the airlines don't have the right to ask. Nobody does. However, if there are no health conditions involved that caused the obesity, it's kinda sad.

As far as setting aside larger seats... larger seats ARE available, for a price. And our government has long ago concluded that flying is a privilege, not a right. The ADA requires "reasonable accommodation" though, so it's a matter of defining "reasonable." But yeah, a few wider seats would solve a lot of the bad press.

[yaycoffee.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... interesting. I kind of feel like this is one of those sticky situations where there's not a fail-safe This Is Right sort of solution. It was good that the teen wasn't stranded, but I do find it a little unfair that she got two seats.

I don't really feel bad for the bumped passenger because she was on standby--getting bumped for whatever reason just comes with standby territory. It's not like they forced a regular paying customer out of her/his seat (from what I can glean).

I think it was probably best that volunteers weren't called for, mostly to preserve the dignity of the teen. And, again--the bumped passenger had a standby ticket and knew that she would possibly have to take a later flight.

IDK--I'm a large girl--not two airplane seats large, but... large. I think it would not be a bad idea for airlines, as a rule, to maybe give up a row of "regular" seating to accommodate those who need a larger seat. It just seems like the way to make things a lot easier for everyone.

[destinyfroste.livejournal.com]

While I agree that leaving a minor behind would not have been a good thing, I disagree with accommodating her as well. It sort of bugs me when I see allowances made for people who are over weight because it makes it easier for them to continue to be so. For example the theme parks that now have over sized seats. We make it easy to be over weight, and so people continue to be over weight and it is unhealthy.

[devilishdestiny.livejournal.com]

a volunteer should have been found, but if someone HAD to be bumped they should have been given a free upgrade.