Finnair - Weighing Passengers

How long will it be before airlines start providing bigger seats, at higher fares? And will make it compulsory to declare on booking that you will fit in a standard seat without overflowing?

I've already posted on this but forgot to agree that it seems to me that seat sizes , particularly on trains , the transport system that I have the most experience of, have been getting smaller.
This means more seats to sell so more profit.
We need seats to be larger , not smaller !

I suffered an extremely uncomfortable flight to Barbados for our 25th anniversary and it spoilt my enjoyment of the exciting flight. I was in between a huge man whose arms and middle flowed over the seat arms (and he made no attempt at all to pull them back) and my husband who did his best to move sideways. The chap’s wife was carefully and comfortably sat in the outside seat. I literally could not put my arms at my side and my chest was almost folded in half so I couldn’t breathe!I kept trying to get my elbow behind the big arms but he was not for moving.

I put up with it as long as I could but as I couldn’t breathe, I just had to ask the air hostess if there was anything at all she could do to help! She was able to move me onto a spare seat with other ladies and thereby changed the whole experience. I’m not fat shaming but the couple obviously knew how impossible it was for him to be on an inside seat but too bad, the neighbour just has to suck it up!

Dollymixtures

I suffered an extremely uncomfortable flight to Barbados for our 25th anniversary and it spoilt my enjoyment of the exciting flight. I was in between a huge man whose arms and middle flowed over the seat arms (and he made no attempt at all to pull them back) and my husband who did his best to move sideways. The chap’s wife was carefully and comfortably sat in the outside seat. I literally could not put my arms at my side and my chest was almost folded in half so I couldn’t breathe!I kept trying to get my elbow behind the big arms but he was not for moving.

I put up with it as long as I could but as I couldn’t breathe, I just had to ask the air hostess if there was anything at all she could do to help! She was able to move me onto a spare seat with other ladies and thereby changed the whole experience. I’m not fat shaming but the couple obviously knew how impossible it was for him to be on an inside seat but too bad, the neighbour just has to suck it up!

Your unfortunate experience Dollymixtures is pretty much why I started the thread, very unfair imo to those who are seated next to whoever is spilling over into their personal space.

Not trying to fat shame, the first time I went to the US, it did forcibly strike me as to how many very large, often young people are on mobility scooters, but would also get off them, in Disney type theme parks and walk about. I don't believe it's always health related, the portions served in some US restaurants are ridiculously over sized and bringing some of those type of establishments here hasn't done our own population a lot of good. I read an article where one journalist posed the question, are people disabled because they're overweight or are they overweight because they're disabled?

With that in mind I take the point that some people have serious health issues that affect their weight. I have an under active thyroid which goes hand in hand with a slow metabolism and feeling sluggish, so I have to be careful as to what I eat I know only too well after that diagnosis weight gain is easily acquired and I do need to go to the gym which I'd put on the back burner since Covid and a couple of other mishaps, but have just started going again.

It had to happen because the obesity tidal-wave has already placed an extra financial burden on hospitals and the ambulance services, something they don't need.
Hospitals have had to invest in re-inforced beds lest a normal bed collapses under the extremely overweight and ditto ambulances. Imagine that? It's becoming almost normal for a person to be so very heavy that they are likely to cause damage to an ambulance. Ye gods!

Making seats bigger will mean less passengers and higher fares. I accept that some people cannot help their obesity but it’s still unfair to expect others to pay extra and/or spend their journeys in discomfort. It’s not nice to be squeezed and uncomfortable. A friend was on a flight recently and the rather large lady next to her asked if she could lift the arm rest between them, she rightly said no. The lady wasn’t happy but frankly if you want more space go to business class!

Some years back we were boarding an internal flight in the US and were told we were being moved to other seats where it would be more comfortable for us.
We watched as a large young woman sat in our 3 seat row, and took up 2. 1/2 of the seats. We wouldn’t have been able to sit down. We were lucky, there were a couple of spare seats. But what if there hadn’t been?