Obese Passenger

Poor man. I feel very sorry for him in his discomfort.

On an Easyjet flight I was impressed by the way the stewardess tactfully and quietly found other seats for a hugely fat couple who'd pre booked seats at the very front and led to the poor passenger on the outside seat having to lean right out into the aisle.

Blimey. Poor man. .

Poor passenger I think. I would have hated a short flight never mind7 hours plus.

Why should staff apologise and why did it affect other passengers and cause them not to smile on disembarking?

It must be hard to ignore 3 such desperately uncomfortable passengers. Not exactly customer care!

Next thing, people will be sueing the airlines for not having bigger planes .

I do wonder why airlines insist on weighing luggage and charging if you are over their prescribed limit..........

Sorry, got ahead of myself! So, a skinny passenger weighing around 8 stone, with a really large heavy case has to pay extra, but a passenger weighing 30stone with a small case is ok?

I thought the weighing luggage thing was a safety aspect to make sure the plane wasn't carrying too much "cargo" but perhaps I'm wrong (often am )

I found that really discomforting to read why would anyone be so cruel as to write about someone like that I m not sure I even understand was this poem in the paper or written by the original poster Talking about a man as an item ...a mountain, a mass a monster I find this very upsetting that anyone can write such cruel words about another human being

phoenix I have wondered that too!

I think the problem is that space in economy is quite limited anyway so having someone taking up more than the allocation and squeezing you into a tight space can cause more problems than just discomfort - it could possibly cause DVT, as happened to one woman on a flight from the USA when she sat next to an obese passenger and was squashed into a small space.

It is also very annoying if the person in front shoves their seat right back and leaves it like that for the whole journey while they happily sleep.

Oh to travel business or first!

My thoughts too Bluebelle. I thought I must be missing something, so didnt post earlier.

This is a hot topic at present. Some airlines insist that an extra seat is purchased if a passenger cant fit comfortably in the seat with both arm rests down. Others will charge for an extra seat if the seatbelt extension has to be added. Rules vary but passengers should be able to sit comfortably without their personal space being impinged on by others. There are several lawsuits going on at present. Maybe the staff referred to were aware of this and didn't know what to do?

phoenix I agree that passenger weight should be a consideration. In fact, I think there have been instances (not in the UK, but US), where passenger weight has been a contributory factor in air crashes. I also think it should be possible to purchase a seat commensurate with your body mass, but I can't perceive many airlines doing this for the foreseeable future unless there's a solid business case for doing so.

But for the grace of God........

Yes I know. Obviously we could all get or be fat but its not fair on other passengers if we squash them into less of the space they have purchased.
I had a hellish trip back from Oz once. I had to lean heavily to my left due to the massively overweight man in the next seat. Getting him out when he needed to go to the toilet was a massive operation. We were all at risk of DVTs purely from the even more limited space that this mans sheer bulk led us to have. The staff were apologetic but the flight was full.
The man wasn't apologetic at all and just assumed it was OK to push us all sideways for so many hours.

A friend of my took a flight in a little prop plane top Scilly and everyone had to be weighed so they could distribute the weight evenly - sounds a bit scary to me!

I appreciate you had a long and uncomfortable flight but regardless of any airline obligations or legal rights and wrongs, I found the 'ode' unbelievably cruel. What did you want the passenger to apologise for and what did you expect him to do, lose half his body weight before sitting down?

No. Just choose a seat that he could fit into. It may cost him more of course...

Do airline seats come in sizes these days?

It's so long since I've been on one...

I do have great empathy with any of you that have been 'squashed' for 7, 8, 9 hours it would be a very very difficult time for you and I have no problem with you grumbling or asking for help but to pen that poem is unforgivably cruel and that is not something to applaud or laugh at I think its awful

It has been mooted by travel experts that airlines are cynically reducing leg room etc so that more of us will upgrade!

Can remember being stuck in a BA queue at a big US airport that took forever to clear because not enough staff were available YET a BA employee was going up and down the line trying to sell upgrades so that we could go to a special desk where there was only a little queue - my normally very calm and polite OH nearly exploded!

Fair enough. I would never have written it or even thought it up. I dealt with our Oz flight situation in the usual British way -sighing and putting up with it (with a bad grace!)

choose a seat that he could fit into like Ana says, is that even possible. ?