>>>How would you make a slightly wider seat? The entire plane is the same width, and you can’t cut into the too-small aisle. (I’d hate to see her trying to get down the aisle while someone else was coming up).
You could make rows with only two seats each. Actually, they do — isn’t that first class?<<<
Yes, they could have a few rows with fewer seats. None of the fancy meals, wine, slippers, etc. of first class, just slightly wider seats at a modest premium.
Your 1.5 seat idea has potential as well. How would the armrests work? Would they simply be lowered on both sides of the middle seat, or would the armrests be redesigned?
At any rate, people who don’t fit into standard seats do not have a “right” to only pay for one, but I also think it makes sense to come of with a win-win solution that benefits overweight flyers, normal sized flyers and the airlines. I’m confident the market will generate such a solution in time.
You’d probably have to design an armrest into the middle of a seat, like they do in the back seat of cars.
You’d also have to come up with an alternative buckle arrangement to make it nice, although you could just have each passenger use the “appropriate” half of the middle buckle, it might be slightly uncomfortable that way, since you’d expect their behinds to be sitting on the seat belt a bit.