United Will Charge The Obese Extra To Fly

their bulk spills out over the armrest into your own seat

A word of warning for very overweight people who travel on one of America’s biggest airline United, is that they may end up being charged for extra seat if they cannot fit into a normal seat easily. The problem of obese passengers on airplanes is becoming much more serious as more people fall into the category of obesity. The average airplane today weighs considerably more than it did thirty years ago and this even impacts on fuel costs.

American Airlines who are United’s biggest competitors said that they would not be pursuing the same policy and said that they would only charge for the extra seat if no other options were physically available such as offering the obese passenger to sit next to a vacant seat. The low cost American airline, Southwest has been enforcing a policy where obese individuals pay for two seats for a number of years now, however because of their cheap no frills prices very overweight people do not complain too much.

There is nothing more uncomfortable and stressful than sitting next to a very overweight passenger on an airplane because their bulk spills out over the armrest into your own seat space. This is obviously extremely embarrassing for the obese person but if you have paid for an airline seat it is only fair that you are allowed to enjoy all of it.

The bottom line is however that airlines have to operate as businesses and if they feel that obese passengers impact negatively on the enjoyment of other passengers they are likely to do something about it. Some people believe however that all airlines should be legally bound to carry all passengers irrespective of their weight and that by asking them to pay for two seats amounts to an unfair discrimination.

It all depends really from what perspective you are looking at it from!