This problem of obese people flying is now something that cannot be ignored...

The problem of obese and overweight people who travel on airlines and take up more than their fair share of space on the plane is growing. For those of you who have never been on a plane sitting next to an extremely obese person what happens is that fat from the obese person spills not only over the armrest into the space you are supposed to occupy but also underneath the armrest into your seat which means that you have an unpleasant bulge of fat pushing against you for the whole duration of the flight.

What often happens is that when you realise you are next to a very overweight person you will discreetly go up to be the air hostess and mention the problem and she will move to you to a better seat. However when the plane is fully booked up and there are no spare seats there is basically nothing that you can do and you must resign yourself to an unpleasant plane journey.

In the United States of America where obesity is rife this problem of overweight people flying is now something that cannot be ignored as more and more passengers are complaining that they are having unpleasant journeys as a result of having to sit next to one of these people. Passengers say that surely they should be compensated for the fact that they did not use all of the space of their seats and that they were paying for somebody else to use a proportion of their seat.

One company in the United States does actually make people who are obese pay extra for their seats and they get a lot of negative publicity as a result. The airline which is based in Texas is called Southwest and claims to fly over 80 million people every year throughout America. The way that Southwest decides whether a passenger is taking up more than his fair share of the space allocated to him is done by simply measuring whether he or she spills over into the neighbouring seat and if so they are required to buy another one. The policy of the airline does not take into account the weight of a person but just looks at the physical bulk and size of the person occupying the seat.

The majority of airlines around the world do not need to have obese people policies in place because in the majority of cases when an obese person is on the plane they can normally solve it satisfactory by adjusting people around. However in the United States where 2/3 of people are overweight and 1/3 of people are obese the problem is growing and it is likely that all airlines that operate there will need to have hard and fast policies for dealing with these people.