If a passenger cannot fit into a single seat, buckle their seatbelt - even with a seatbelt extender - or put the seat's armrest down, the airline will ask that passenger to pay for an extra seat or stay behind.
The policy applies to tickets purchased on or after March 4, 2009 for travel on or after April 15 and United says they did it because of passenger complaints - though a spokesperson tells Lewis Lazare that they got only 700 gripes out of 80 million or so travelers last year - and the increased fuel costs brought on by the heavier payload obese passengers create.
Submitted on Apr 15, 2009 9:48 pm by [submitter anonymized] | comments (1)
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It's funny I was talking about this yesterday. In the UK with Ryanair, if you go over 1kg of the 15kg allocation with the luggage, you pay something in the region of £15 per kilo which starts getting rather expensive very quickly. If you had prepared properly and bought space for an additional bag, then you stay within the agreement per bag limit.
However, when it comes to people, at 82Kg (~13 stone) I pay the same charge as someone who is larger or smaller than me. If you kept it simple and said something like less than 45Kg (children, very thin/small adults) pay a reduced fee, between 46Kg (7 stone) and 90Kg (14 stone) pay the normal fee and anyone between 91Kg and 135Kg (21 stone) you pay an increased charge.
If you are above 136Kg (21 stone) there is no way you are fitting in a single economy seat and should be charged accordingly for the loss of one space on the plane.
If anyone says this is being sizest (does that exist?) or feels they don't want to go through with the potentially embarrassing option of being weighed in public should have the option to pay an increased fee that avoids the screening process. Me and others that don't want to be charged increased fees to cover for other larger individuals will simply have to go through the screening process and hope the airlines reward us for our commitment.
Rob