Cost of fat air passengers takes off

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=U13EVR13R0OZTQFIQMFSM54AVCBQ0JVC?xml=/news/2004/11/06/wbig06.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/06/ixportal.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=41003

Fat Americans are eating into the US air industry's bottom line, forcing planes to consume ever more fuel to transport their bulk. The average weight of Americans rose by 10lb during the 1990s and what a new survey called this "additional adiposity" caused airlines to use a further 350 million gallons of fuel in 2000, at a cost of £149 million. This is hitting the environment with an extra 3.8 million tons of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

To reduce the weight carried by their planes, airlines have dumped metal cutlery and large magazines and want to use lighter materials in seating. But passenger size is more difficult to control. To howls of outrage from the country's "fat acceptance" lobby, Southwest Airlines has begun asking larger travellers to purchase a second seat.

America's eating habits have been blamed for a lower than expected rise in life expectancy and dearer health insurance but never before for contributing to the woes of a whole sector of the economy.

A commuter plane crash that killed 21 people in North Carolina last year has been blamed on the passengers' greater than average weight.

i am now homing on a 'regional' target, a nice bit of weekend homework to chew on, this Southwest.

we shall see whether they are deserving, and how best to deal with them...

I just flew back from Europe on a nine hour flight. The arrangement of the seats was 2x4x2. I had the window seat, one seat next to me, then the aisle.

This very large woman got the seat next to me. We had to lift the arm rest between us for her to fit in the seat. This, of course, meant her body mass spilled into my seat...the seat I paid for. I was literally sandwiched between her and the wall of the plane FOR NINE HOURS.

I asked her if she might be interested in the window seat, so I could at least have breathing space on ONE side. Nope...she wasn't budging. When I got up several times so I could stand at the back of the plane and not feel like I was being suffocated, she actually had the gall to say "How many more times are you planning to get up?" in an irritated tone. Because of her body mass it was difficult for her to get up and let me in and out, but I'll be damned if I was going to sit there with some stranger pressed up against me all the way across the Atlantic.

I'm sorry...if you're so large that you spill over into the next person's seat, you need to pay for two seats. That's not discrimination, it's only fair.

That sounds so-o-o-o Democratic.

How about this one, then? If you're so large that you spill over into the next person's seat, you need to pay for two seats -- each of which will be paid by health insurance -- ?

However, the Talking Point says that obesity is a "lifestyle choice", like being gay.

--bkl

I would have no problem with airlines granting exceptions to people who have written notes from doctors that their excessive weight is a result of a medical condition.

That being said, it's the free market - what's next, preventing clothiers from charging extra for the XXL+ sizes? I miss out on some things because I'm tall and big (but not obese, thankfully), like paying more for some clothes, but I'm not going to cry about how unfair it is and force businesses to lose money to accommodate me.

98% of all diets fail within 5 years (a rate more consistent with medical issues than lifestyle choices). Researchers have found things like virus-associated obesity in rats, then went on to discover that fat humans are more likelt to have antibodies to the very same virus. Logic would tell you that weight should correspond to greater access to rich food nd decreased daily activity, but in fact weight more closely corresponds to poverty, which is what you'd expect with disease.

I could go on, but I've got a parrot screaming in my right ear, so I'll stop right now :) No one knows for sure what causes obesity, but there sure are a lot of hints that's it's illness.

Can you explain then why the obesity problem is a uniquely American epidemic? Do you think it's just a coincidence that the USA has the most unhealthy lifestyle, both in terms of lack of exercise and nutrition (out of nations where nutritious food is available), and is also the most obese nation on the planet? You are equating obesity to poverty as evidence that it is a medical problem, but there is no evidence of this anywhere else in the world. The poorest nations in the world are certainly not fat.

It IS a lifestyle problem, and it affects the poorer people because junk food is cheaper and easier. Poor people either cannot afford healthier options or they work too many hours to have time to prepare healthy meals. So they resort to McDonald's. So it is a lifestyle problem, but we cannot place the blame entirely on the individuals, because in many cases people do not have adequate opportunity to live a healthier lifestyle.

As always, there are certainly some genetic factors involved, that is, some people will naturally resist obesity and some people will naturally become obese. But the evidence of the vast majority of cases being a lifestyle issue is undeniable.

That says it all.

The cost of the extra material used in clothing for the obese is negligable. I'll note that Wal-Mart supports this practice -- charging fatties more money -- as do most socially-regressive organizations which have the occasional obese customer, whom they look upon with high-moral disdain. And "The Free Market" is used to justify all manner of evils from overcharging the obese to impoverishing minorities, and lately, technical workers.

Requiring an obese person to get a doctor's note to be charged a normal price is a kind of paternalism we wouldn't put up with if it was applied to black people, women, or other specified groups. Why not charge black folks more money for insurance, on the premise that they are so much more prone to crime? I also know that feminist activists have been pushing for equality in insurance rates for decades.

If you're familiar with the literature on obesity, you'll quickly find that it's no more a "lifestyle choice" than is cancer or epilepsy. On the other hand, bigotry really is a lifestyle choice, one that is usually passed off as "Common Sense".

--bkl

And it is partly lifestyle, but only in that I have to eat less and exercise more than most folks to lose weight and I don't always do that. It can be difficult and time consuming (not to mention unrewarding when the weight comes off very, very slowly).

I'm not fat enough to require an extra seat on a plane, but I am offended by the practice. I am also annoyed by the extra cost for clothing and the rampant discrimination that fatties face.

I wonder if the extra fuel use on planes is because the people are fatter or because they now load the planes to full capacity. There was a time, not so long ago, when there were usually extra seats on planes. I even remember being on a wide body once where people were stretched out on all 4 seats in the middle because the plane was so empty.

I haven't been on a plane recently that wasn't overbooked and jammed to the gills.

Is simply ridiculous. Obesity, in the vast majority of cases, is a life style choice, not an affliction, not a disease. It results from poor diet(which can have numerous causes) and from being sedintery entirely too much. We have raise an entire generation that eats too much, of the wrong foods, and doesn't excercise nearly enough.

There are many contibuting factors to this lifestyle choice, what your parents did, what your job is, what you do on your off time. But all of these factors can be changed by the individual. If this were some sort of medical "epedimic", then why is it not affecting Europe, Africa and Asia? Why is this the only generation that it is affecting in such massive numbers? Where is the medical literature giving out research results backing up your position? Because there is none friend, with rare exceptions the entire medical community agrees that the overwhelming majority of obesity is brought about by lifestyle choices.

And quite frankly, if a person takes up two seats and extra weight on a plane, causing the plane to burn more fuel and expel more pollution, then that person should pay for said seat. I'm 6'5", and have had to pay for longer clothes most of my life, and I don't feel offended by it. I realize my clothes take up more fabric. Obese people should have to pay for the extra resources that they use. If they don't want to pay the higher price, lose the weight. I know how difficult that can be. It requires a daily commitment on the persons' part to eat less, eat healthier, and get out and exercise. But it can be done, without fad diets, without surgery. It is simply the common sense matter of eating healthier, and being more active.

To take the position that those who are obese have some sort of "affliction" is probably more paternalistic than getting a doctor's note for the airline. It implies that those who are obese cannot do anything about their problem, when in the overwhelming number of cases it is clear as day that these people can do something about their weight if they would simply take charge of their lives and lifestyles.

I have had that happen so many times and it frustrates the hell out of me. But, once I get home, I realize it gives me a reason to remember the trip. Which is usually a great memory.

seats were bigger and there was actually leg room? Airlines started putting in more and more seat in the same space (in the late 70s or early 80s) which reduced passenger comfort and has contributed to the overall dissatisfaction of those who must travel by air. Even buses have more space in them...

two seats, or just the one and still their body mass continue to spill onto the passenger next to them? -- that, if so, would be dumping onto the fat people what the bush people are refusing to be responsible for with their refusal to collect taxes.

You had no obligation to do it and I hope if you find yourself in that situation again, you will keep it down, thereby reserving your own seat space for yourself. I have sympathy for overweight people -- I was 60 pounds overweight myself until I lost it last year. But I wouldn't dream of imposing my size on someone else.

It was kind of you to accomodate her but you paid for your seat, too, and you have the right to all of it! You're exactly right -- it's only fair!

dream of letting her body take over someone else's space. We have sat on narrow bus and plane seats side by side and I have never felt constricted by her, but I think that's because she is aware of where her body ends and where someone else's begins.
Don't lift the arm rest--nobody has the right to turn you into a sardine, and that includes men who sprawl out their legs like they are on the couch at home.

I do my utmost to make sure I don't crowd the person next to me. I have long legs and broad shoulders, so I have to work sometimes to make sure I'm giving the person next to me all the space they deserve. But to me that's the price I pay for living in a civilized society - even though I'm big, I have to do what I can to take care of my "brothers and sisters". :-)

I'm overweight but doubt it' enough to spill over into the next seat. How would I tell until I got onto the plane, though? At what weight would we require people to buy a second seat?

Which was "how come we never had any fat astronauts?"

3 or 4 g's to it.

and thinking about payload more than just having astronauts with love handles in space...I suppose I should research more but was attempting humor...I mean it wouldn't hurt if I dropped twenty pounds myself!

I had fought the weight off running (the only way that works for me and one that I am now denied because of truly fucked knees) and went on a particular amusement park ride with my kids and my girlfriend and her daughter and the g's from that thing made me feel every single excess pound. I could barely breathe against it.

Whew!

I can only imagine what it would be like with the g's from a launch.

:wow:

I'm really tall (6'6") so if the person in front of me tries to recline their seat, my kneecaps get crushed. I spent a 9 hour flight to Europe with my knees crammed into the seat. I could barely walk after that.

And I would be HAPPY to pay a little more for a few inches of legroom. But paying for two seats, especially on long flights, is a bit of a burden. I just wish they would have a few rows of larger seats with more legroom for the benefit of those who need them.

should have to pay for seats in first class. ;-)

The airlines should go back to adequate seat size and pocket a little less profit. Sorry but I don't buy they are struggling financially crap. They get govt subsidies and pay their CEO's and shareholders quite well.

(Even someone who is heavy, as long as they aren't morbidly obese should have to pay more.)

Airlines go bankrupt on a routine basis, which means that the shareholders get completely wiped out.

Delta Airlines loses $23 for every passenger they fly.


Airlines do not make money, they receive gov't assistance because we can't have a strong business environment if we don't have efficient travel. Maybe they should be nationalized and all the CEOs executed or whatever, but for various reasons, they mostly do not turn a profit.

My partner talked to a man who always buys two coach seats -- with today's discount fares, it is still thousands and thousands less than buying a first class seat. Considering how cheap trans-Altantic flights are today, I don't see where it would be a burden at all for larger than average folks to buy two economy seats. They're still paying less than they would have paid in the late 80s/early 90s to fly!

I don't think it's fair to ask the person in front of you not to recline. Many of us tire easily and we need to recline if we can on those long flights over the Atlantic. Fat and tall people are not the only people who have health issues that should be considered.

I do have a proposal that, instead of charging big people more, the airlines could offer incentives to little people. It would cost big people the same but they wouldn't feel singled out if it was handled in that way. For instance, if me plus carry-on plus checked luggage can prove I'm less than 150 pounds, maybe I should receive bonus frequent flyer miles toward a free ticket. Or maybe I should receive a cash rebate. The first airline to do this should be able to attract lots of us little folk who travel light.

Fat, tall, or high maintenance folk with lots of bags could keep on doing what they're doing.

Does that seem fair?

Much better than demanding that the person in front of you
sit bolt-upright for 9 hours or having the seat on
your knees.

That's the problem I have on planes, is tall people behind me
insisting that I must keep my seat fully upright to accomodate
their legs.

Trains rock!

We've gotten taller as well as heavier, so howthehell do they know the extra 10 pounds is fat?

overweight and would not like to pay extra...but...if you are too fat to fit in the seats without cramming the person next to you...something is wrong with that picture.

All ideas need to be evaluated before they get dissed as being undemocratic. (IMHO)

I'm overweight too, but I've never taken up more than my allotted space. In fact, I don't much like being in close proximity to strangers, so I've always twisted myself into a pretzel so as not to encroach on anyone. I tuck my arms in and stay within the boundaries of my seat and I'll even twist sideways for more room. I have had skinny folks encroach on me, though, with their elbows and knees.

Perhaps people should fly like freight, by weight. But then more people would fly because their kids would be cheap and we'have more screaming kids running back and forth and jumping up and down or just staring at you.

Flying is like being in a cattle round-up anyway unless you can afford first class.

if you weigh more, but it's muscle not fat, do you have to pay extra? Let's all measure our body fat percentage before we get on the plane, then they really charge for fat only!

I weigh about 220, and I'm only 5'4" ... but NOBODY, not my doctor, my surgeon or the nurses thinks that I look "that fat." According to my BMI, I'm morbidly obese for godsake! I don't look as fat as several women that I know who weigh less than I do! I have dense bones and strong muscles.

Frankly, I've flown a lot, and I make a strong effort NOT to overflow my seat (I usually get the window seat and squish myself), I don't raise the armrest, I keep to myself.

I've had more problems with big men (not fat, big) who spread their legs/knees out into my space, their big arms squish over into my space, they drink too much and have to get up and down to pee....

Coach seats used to be as large as First Class. MANY years ago, when flying was a big deal.

Now 12 lucky people get to stretch out and not have to engage in frottage with the person next to them and they pack the rest of us in like sausage filling in the back of the plane.

I have a BMI of 30. I'm working on it. what I want to know is given that I'm 6'4" and 280#, does it really cost more to carry me than it does a power-lifter who's 6'4" and 280 with 4% total body fat?

no, but it's easier to bash fat people to get FAA approval to charge more.

They could have offset the cost of fuel by giving their CEO's a 5% pay cut, IMO.

Have passengers purchase "shares" of each flight according to their body volume. Insist that the airlines never sell more "shares" than seats. Then, when the flight is made apportion the costs+profits of the flight among the "shares" purchased. Thus, if a person winds up being the only passenger and having access to and use of all the seats, they'd pay the entire cost+profit for the flight!

That's, in essence, the same principle the fat-fascists are advocating, but applied in all directions.

I'm a smaller than average person and even I feel claustrophobic and cramped in a plane. And I haven't flown in years for that reason. The damn seats are too small and too close together!

The airlines are just trying to find a scapegoat for overloading the planes so they can keep raking in the dough. Tickets probably should cost more if they want to be profitable.

If that makes no one want to fly, so be it. Buh-bye, lousy industry.

I'm 5 ft tall and weigh around 130 and I feel crushed in Economy seats. I know we'd have to pay more for the ticket because the plane wouold be carrying fewer people, but at least we'd all have more comfort.
FWIW I flew American transatlantic last year and they really HAVE made more room in coach - it made a big difference to me and I'd recommend them as an airline.

... has reduced service (and costs) past the point of endangering the very public to which it owes its very existence. In no other area of endeavor is it even close to acceptable to under-engineer an instrument to the point it poses a threat to human life. Greed and profits, however, lead to atrocities.

September 11th could have been prevented if cockpit doors has been reinforced and locked and air marshals been present in the cabin. Both of these approaches were strongly 'recommended' for decades ... but the financial clout of the airlines industry, contrary to human interests, had evaded such steps for all that time and more! There's not a fucking thing that has reasonably been done post-9/11 that wasn't known for decades!

There is absolutely no excuse for any airline to configure a plane in such a fashion. If the flight cannot safely handle a TOPS convention with 50% margin for safety, those responsible should be jailed.

the GOP belittles the concept of tolerance so there you have it...it is now going to be okay to be bigoted toward anyone unacceptable to industry...

need to quit flying. They are filling the planes, so there is no lack of demand for these cramped quarters. No one is holding a gun to your head making you fly. - K

This is 50 percent of the fucking problem with this world. Instead of demanding something tolerable, you get stuck with shit, while they're "filling planes," and "making money," for their shareholders that was subsidized and bailed out by my fucking tax dollars, they should make much more comfortable seats. People die from blood clots, because they can't stretch their legs out. I'm an average-sized person, too and I think they're totally small.

Why do you immediately take the airline's side?

That's my guess.

Of course they are filling planes. People don't have too many damn choices when it comes to traveling cross-country. Your post reminds me of something a "compassionate conservative" might say.

The last two had 7 and 10 passengers on the plane. You are wrong.

The "Headgun".

Then, there's the little filip about "whining". But it seems that you are now the one whining.

The "Free Market" is like "Christianity" today -- a mass mind-fuck that justifies atrocious behavior and sugar-coats it so it's easier to digest. But the plain, unvarnished reality is that thuggery is still thuggery, whethe in the name of Jeebus, Ayn Rand, or a condescending disdain of "whining".

Which the social thugs never do themselves, of course.

--bkl

any number of times before here on DU, and I want to point out a few things.

1. Coach seats are not the same size first class seats used to be. What's mostly changed is the pitch, which is the distance from the back of one seat in a row to the back of the seat in the next row. Meaning leg room. And that used to be a great deal more.

2. Someone who is a little overweight doesn't spill over into the next seat as in the stories related here. Those who do are morbidly obese, and if you think it's okay for you to be morbidly obese fine, I'm not going to argue with that degree of ignorance, but DON'T BLAME THE SMALL SEATS for the fact that you are taking up half of someone else's seat.

3. This has actually been something of an issue for thirty years or more, it's just that there are a lot more morbidly obese people out there these days. I'm a former airline employee myself, and I can tell you that once or twice a year we'd have to make sure an obese person had two seats available to use. Back then, flights rarely went out full, so you'd just make sure you didn't assign a seat next to the fat person. Nowadays, with flights full, charging for the seat that could have been sold to someone else is only fair. You use two seats, you pay for two seats.

4. Back when I worked we only charged a half fair for the extra seat. Don't know what Southwest's policy is. And I can assure you that all airlines are doing this, it's just that Southwest for some reason gets all the negative publicity.

There was a time, back in the 1930's, when airlines actually did weigh each and every passenger before boarding. They stopped doing that when planes got big enough that estimated weights would work. We even had a summer and a winter weight (five pounds more in the winter) to account for the weight of heavier clothes and coats. As I recall, we even did a male/female breakdown because of different weights by gender. As planes got larger, it was less of an issue.

The real problem is that the people who make the decisions about how large the seats should be and how far apart, seem to rarely fly on the planes themselves, and certainly never deal with any of the passengers crammed into those seats.

As always, management sucks.

Despite overwhelming empirical facts to the contrary, the fatfascists continue to advocate a two-seat fee for larger people ... but NEVER seem to advocate that such passengers actually receive what they'd pay for. Never mind the fact that Mr. & Mrs Jack Spratt would be quite happy sharing two seats. Never mind the fact that 1.5 seats of today match the space taken by single seats of 35 years ago and never mind the fact that two overweight people could be quite comfortably accommodated in a reconfigured 3-across configuration ... thus justifying only a 1.5-seat charge. It's the blame-the-victim crowd mobbing up yet again.

Fact: Fat people pay taxes that subsidize the airline industry! (Infants do not.)
Fact: Infants occupying an entire seat are charged at half-rate. Do the fucking math!


This is yet another example of the externalization of corporate costs and the privatization of profits. Yet rather than reasonably and fairly regulate this publicly-licensed and publicly subsidized industry to ensure egalitarian commercial practices, the eagerly-divisive seek the least-powerful to victimize yet again.

I've seen some of the most incredibly insensitive, intolerant, Bushian, fundamentalist, Objectivist, social Darwinist, and just-plain-bigoted opinions fly on DU under the guise of "concern" for obesity. I've even been punished for responding to it.

Any kind of group hatred is bigotry. Period. No matter how it's justified or prettified.

--bkl

Fat Bashing is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. People don't choose to be fat. People don't choose to be gay. Get a clue people. The answer is......Make bigger seats.

because they won't change their eating or exercise habits. I know none who have chosen to be gay.

There are also people who eat the wrong things and don't exercise who are not fat. Why should one group of people be chastised for making the same choices as another group just because the results displease others?

I got so sick of watching those skinny bitches at work eat a bag of chips, a pop and a candy bar for lunch, then go smoke a cigarette!

One of them even told me that "she'd rather have cancer than be fat" when she was lamenting that she'd only quit smoking if it didn't make her gain weight! I told her she could always lose the weight (yeah, right!) but she couldn't grow new lungs.

That told me a lot right there ... how ignorant people are ... she'd rather have cancer than be fat. I hope she got her wish.

I'm pretty disgusted to see some of the things posted on this topic.

That takes up the whole seat.

Children under 2 aren't charged if they're sitting on Mom or Dad's lap.

If someone is so overweight that they take up more than 1 seat, they should have to pay extra.

Not to inflame the red state/ blue state wars, but it's something I noticed while walking in NYC last week. Everyone there looked so trim. The only really fat people I encountered were tourists.

A few weeks before that, I was in Texas and everyone there was FAT. I mean big, honking HUGE.

Talking more about cultural differences -- while traveling in the UK, I noticed that the plastic benches they have on their mass transit systems have really tiny seats. Not made for American butts. Another indication that Americans have grown way too big for their britches.