by Carole Ligi

Created on: June 13, 2009   Last Updated: April 03, 2012

This has been aproblem that has long been debated for many years and everyone appears to have
their own ideas as to the solution of dealing with obese passengers. The question should be is the airline selling a ticket per person or per seat? 

If the airlines are selling an allotted amount of seats and one person’s frame is taking more than that space paid for, then yes, they should have to pay more.  If the airlines are selling to the individual then each individual should pay the same amount and the airlines allot the

number of seats per the requirements of the individual.

Since that question is not likely to be resolved in the near future the question should be asked about the individuals who are not obese and paid for a seat and is not getting their monies worth since they are not getting to use the space they paid for at the time.  This is especially true with the airlines that have downsized their seats to sell more tickets and transport a greater number of people in one plane

Many people thattravel frequently have come across this situation of sitting next to a passenger who is obese and his or her body mass takes over into another’s seating space. Try sitting on a cross country airplane flight and a fellow passenger's girth is taking over seating space that you, as a traveler, paid the same amount of money to use. The obese passenger paid for one seat, not one seat and another's seat.  Personal space is limited on public transportation in the first place. How would the obese person feel if their fellow passenger decided to stretch out over the row of seats across them and violate other passengers' personal space?

Another problem is if there is an emergency then all of the passengers need to get out of the carrier in a safe, quick and timely manner. If a person is helmed into his or her seat by an obese passenger then they may have trouble exiting in a timely manner.

One way that airlines can help is to offer health magazines on their flights as well as healthy meals in the flights that provide meal service.  Sometimes it is just a matter of something positive to help a person get their weight under control for their own well-being and then this would not be a question in the future.

There are two possible solutions. Both would be unpopular, but practical to resolving this problem.  One is to sell the obese passengers two seats and they pay for both seats or to increase the fare of the obese passenger if their fellow passenger complains about
personal space being violated. This will not be viewed by some as politically correct, but having your personal space violated is not politically correct either.

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