Posted on 04/15/2009 9:53:17 AM PDT by Steelfish
United gets strict on ‘seatmates of size’ Policy requires large passengers to purchase extra ticket or stay behind
By Harriet Baskas
Effective today, United Airlines has a new official policy that affects “seatmates of size” and those passengers seated near them.
The airline’s posted policy states that if a passenger cannot fit into a single seat, buckle their seatbelt with an additional seatbelt extension, or put the seat’s armrest down, the airline will ask that passenger to pay for an extra seat or stay behind.
Spokesperson Robin Urbanski Janikowski said the airline will first attempt to take measures to avoid the extra charge. “If there is another seat on the airplane that is next to an empty seat, we will re-accommodate our guest in that seat and there is no charge,” she wrote in an e-mail message.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
About two hours. When I got to my seat, rushing to catch the flight, they were already seated, had the arm rests lifted, and were spread out to effectively take up all three seats. After all, the flight was about to take off and it looked as if they were going to win the lottery and have the one empty seat between them.
BTW, this story isn't meant to make fun of those who are obese. The situation was funny, in retrospect, and made more so by the fact that they were wearing shorts and tank tops, and I was in perhaps the one color most geared to show their sweat. That, and I didn't have time to dry, and had no clothes to change into. Just off the plane, rush to a taxi, and in an airport-based hotel conference center conference room within minutes of arrival, looking as if I had walked through a lawn sprinkler.
I also learned that you can't brush Little Debby snack cake crumbs off wet clothes. They just crumble.
Can’t they be shipped with the baggage?
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I was wondering what to have for lunch today.
I’m not hungry now.
Ahhh. Mr. Creosote and his wafer-thin mint.
I posted two other horror stories on the other thread, one which had a Mr. Creosote-type ending:
There was the time the four-year old kid spent most of the flight standing in the middle seat in the row in front of me, almost in a Kilroy Was Here position, usually just his fingers and head from the nose up showing, with the flight attendant asking the mom to seat him every five minutes.
At one point in the flight, with no warning of any kind, he projectile vomited with such precision that the arc went over our row, between my head and the person sitting beside me, and planted the aisle-seated, perfectly coiffed and attired businesswoman in the row behind us, smack in her face and in her hair. And the kid had clearly eaten a very full breakfast.
As they say, I dodged a bullet that day.
Wow.
For several years now my family of three (adults now) have always been seated together.
However, I did note the fatties practically turning sideways just to walk down the aisle, and wondered about the poor souls forced to squeeze next to them.
That sounds as bad as sitting in between two 400lbers! I do not blame United for charging more. It should be a wakeup call to the super obese. They will need to be buried in a piano crate if they don’t do something.
Boy you said a mouth full! Fatties, stinkers and loud constant talkers, don’t know which group is more offensive. I have sat next to all of them at one time or another. There was a woman 2 rows ahead of me that smelled so bad that I don’t know how the people closer to her could stand it.
I really hate to fly and do it just as seldom as possible.
wait till we get cell-phone use on airplanes.
We can all be obnoxious in our own ways. I’ve received a call before boarding a plane that changed an entire presentation to a client and spent three hours of a flight frantically re-doing a presentation on a laptop. I know that had to be annoying to the people on either side of me.
Sometimes, just the act of leaning back the seat can be a problem, when a seat leans back much further than it should and maintenance hasn’t taken care of the problem. You have another seat in your lap for the flight.
Crying children are annoying, but I guess I have a soft spot for children and understanding that little ears hurt on takeoff and landing. I endure crying children. I have a problem with whining children and children who kick the back of my seat, particularly after pointing out the kicking problem to the parents in a nice manner.
Body odor is a major annoyance.
Seat mates who insist on talking when it’s clear you’re reading, working, or trying to sleep are an annoyance.
Tall people, bless ‘em, who are told to get their legs out of the aisle, present a problem when the only other place for their legs are in my leg room of the middle seat, or when they are stuck in the middle seat and have to put them in my leg room in the aisle or window.
People who are allowed to violate the number of bags to bring on board and want to cram something the size of a small car under the seat in front of YOU, because they’ve already placed the small bag under the seat in front of them, so that you lose your foot room, are an annoyance.
Wow, I guess I’m just picky.
Just Pray you never get the trifecta sitting next to you...
The last flight I was on several months ago, 2 men seated in the row behind me tried to out do each other with their belongings, houses, country clubs, cars etc. They talked endlessly about how rich and important they were and seemed intent on outdoing each other. I leared everything about them except their exact addresses. I wanted to scream STFU! Finally they start to talk about the important people that they knew. Then they mentioned someone I knew and began to really run him down....... their voices got so low I could no longer hear them. I am straining to hear the gossip and couldn’t. Isn’t that just the pits? LOL!
United settled on the term “Seatmates of Size” after rejecting a number of other suggestions, such as “Commuters of Corpulence” and “Travelers of Tonnage.”
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