'Person Of Size' Angry About Need For Spill-Over Ticket

Sacramento Bee via Scripps Howard ^ | June 18, 2002 | Bob Shallit

[Reaganwuzthebest]

As a professional services executive for a software company, Steve McAllister travels a lot. The resident of the California foothills figures he's accumulated a couple million frequent flier miles and flown on Southwest Airlines at least 100 times.

But he never before experienced what happened a week ago. And he was hopping mad.

While buying a ticket for a Southwest flight from Sacramento to Burbank, Calif., he was told he'd need to buy an extra ticket.

The reason? He's what the airline calls "a person of size" - the PC term, evidently, for someone so large he may need more than one seat.

McAllister is, in fact, a big man - 6 feet 2 inches, 350 pounds. But the former college football player says he's never been accused of taking up more than a single seat on a flight.

"To be honest, I was really outraged," McAllister says of the request for double payment. Eventually, after some heated words, he was allowed to get a single ticket but only because the Southwest people were a little premature in enforcing a new policy.

As of June 26, large customers will have to pay the extra fare - but can seek reimbursement if it turns out the flight has unoccupied seats. In the past, ticket agents had the option of charging big people for an extra seat when a flight was fully booked. But they apparently didn't do it very often.

So how do the agents determine if a customer is likely to exceed his allotted space? It's a judgment call, says airlines spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger.

It is, she acknowledges, "a very delicate situation."

[Brian Allen]

Mongrel bastard, Peter-Principled, bureaucrat-beancounter, bottom-line-looker airline companies wouldn't ever think to put seats in the damned airplanes that folks can fit into and be a little comfortable.

Bring back the Aviation Enthusiasts who ran the airlines in the Good Old Days! I'm pretty average sized but simply will not fly unless I'm in First or Business/First.

NEVER!

[TJFLSTRAT]

If your a fatty-fat-fatso, and your girth burbles over into your neighbors seat, THEN BUY TWO TICKETS!!!. Err by the way I'm 5'9" and weigh 330lbs.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

I'm pretty average sized but simply will not fly unless I'm in First or Business/First.

I'm too much of a cheap bastard to go business or first. That's my cost tradeoff. I'd rather be cramped for 13 hours (as I was when on the Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand leg of my flight to Australia, than pay hundreds more for the extra room. But that's just me. I'm poor enough that it makes a difference to me.

[Brian Allen]

I imagine you was fit to be Thai'ed. ;-)

I am, all the darn time.

But my wife looks at me funny if I more than think about it!

<];^)~<

[Dasaji]

When you buy a ticket, you are buying use of that space (it can be argued, anyway). If you can not fit within that space,. . .

If you think about it, this issue is not too far away from your neighbor's outside garbage, crap, debris, shed, tree, etc. spilling over onto your property which you pay taxes on.

And, there is a difference between a large person and a gluttonic fat person...I have a problem with the "slob" overflowing into my seat when I've had to pay for two seats for my 9 year old daughter and myself while our combined weights are less than half of the small planet with ears sitting next to us.

[Zon]

Wait a minute - "person of size?" I'm offended! I'm a person of size, too - small and skinny is a size too. We have just as much right to use the "person of size" sobriquet as weight-challenged lardbuckets. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

I don't get it, has an airline said you must buy a second ticket or are you saying you want to be classified as a "person of size" so that you too must buy a second ticket?

[dutchess]

This is Dutchess husband. Just wanted to say to you that you put yourself on the scale every day and if you are under your target weight have a great time; if you are over your target weight go back to the diet. It has worked for me for 10 years.

[DennisR]

You call that living? :)

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

EggsAckley, I'm pinging you to this reply because I KNOW you have something to say about this issue (the private property issue, not necessarily the article that started the thread)!

[DontMessWithMyCountry]

Danielle, i don't think you intended to imply it; you simply did, by saying that since the gubmint already subsidizes the airlines, that special accommodation should be made for obese customers. The point is that the gubmint ought not to be subsidizing the airlines to begin with. Secondly, it gets a little (no, a lot) tiresome when our gubmint (and it starts with the 'but they're people, too' chanting in the galleries) building one category after another category of 'protected' classes, when there is nothing, quite frankly to 'protect'. People (generally speaking) are not born smoking, obese, drinking, or doing drugs. These (usually) are self-induced habits/conditions. Why, therefore, should others (not that they are, but even if they ARE, a minority) have to be penalized (either by inconvenience or greater expense incurred) for other peoples' 'problems' in life? Yea, it's nice to be sensitive, but it's also nice to take personal responsibility, and it would be a refreshing change for people to become more 'sensitive' to the needs and feelings of people who HAVE taken personal responsibility. That's all.

[DennisR]

If the pay double, then it would not be torture because they would get two seats.

[Jhoffa_]

Hey fatso, stop dribbling over the handrail!

(And quit glaring at my crackers like that..))

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

You, my friend, have the simplest weight maintenance plan ever invented. Bravo! I agree completely. It's no coincidence that once I knew I was gaining weight, I stopped weighing myself. I didn't want the reminder. It's just the opposite now -- I want to know if I'm gaining before it's too late to take it off within a week or two.

[Jorge]

ROFL! stop!
You should send that idea to the airline. I bet they would site it as a legitimate passenger complaint, and use it to support their new policy.
And why stop with airline seat "spill-over" complaints?
Think of the excessive drain "person's of size" place on the eco-system and natural resources.
It's not fair!

[Lorianne]

All for it. Its just plain not fair to average size persons to have less than their full seat.

That said, I think the airlines should provide seats of larger size in coach. That way larger people could be accomodated in one the larger seats OR pay for 2 seats. If there were no "people of size" on the flight (fat chance) then a few lucky coach passengers will get a little extra room.

BTW isn't it odd that as Americans get larger and larger, airline seats get smaller and smaller?

[the]

[OC_Steve]

If we go the route of a "Fat Section" on an airplane, I want a "Cryin' Baby" and "Typhoid Mary" section as well. I am fed up with people coughing and hacking on me on these flight (didn't these people learn to cover their mouths). I got a doozy of a cold a couple of months back after sitting next to one of these carriers.

In all fairness (and to stop being flamed), most of the babies that fly are well behaved and their parents know how to handle them. It is that instance where a kid cries the whole flight while Momma or Poppa have their headphones on watching the movie that gets me.

[OC_Steve]

Hey you found my high school picture. Wasn't I a dream?

[the]

Earplugs can be a lifesaver on flights. I took the Screaming Baby Express back from Chicago in Janurary, sitting right next to a woman with her screaming boy on her lap.

The other thing to keep in mind is defensive use of the armrest. Getting it down and keeping it down helps keep the "person of size's" flab from leaning up against you too much during the flight.

I learned the hard way that this does not work on most turboprops, since they lack an armrest...

[the]

Rob, is that you? ;-)

In February, 1958, Robert Earl Hughes weighed 1069 pounds, the heaviest authenticated human.