Air France staff measured his waist in front of a queue of other passengers

You may have remembered when Ukmedix News reported on the case of a Frenchman who was suing his national airline Air France because they made him purchase an extra seat on a flight from India to Paris because they said he was too obese to sit in one seat. The case has been ruled upon in a French court and the judge said that it was unfair that he was made to pay for another seat and that he should be given damages for the gross humiliation he suffered when the Air France staff measured his waist in front of a queue of other passengers at the airport in New Delhi.

Mr. Jean-Jacques Jauffret who weighs 170 kilos said that he had suffered no problems when he went out to India and Air France only decided to charge him extra when he was on his return to Paris. He said that Air France must decide whether they are an airline which carries “passengers or kilos”. Air France were ordered to pay 8,000 euros in damages to Mr. Jauffret as well as to reimburse him for the cost of the second seat that he was forced to buy in India.

Airlines are increasingly struggling with the worldwide obesity problem as far more often now they have extremely overweight passengers who find it difficult to sit in one seat, and they have to deal with more complaints from people who have to sit next to these hugely obese passengers and are therefore made uncomfortable on the journey.

The airlines are also noticing that the average weight of a full airplane is considerably higher these days as the average weight of the passengers has also increased. This means that more fuel is consumed on the average journey today than the average journey twenty or 30 years ago.