Oversized flyers pose challenge for seatmates and airlines alike
It’s true: Americans are getting larger, and airline seats are shrinking. So confrontations between oversized airline passengers and their fellow travelers are inevitable.
The average American man weighs 15 pounds more than he did 20 years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The average U.S. woman weighs 16.2 pounds more.
The average seat pitch, a rough measure of legroom, has dropped from 35 inches in the 1970s to about 31 inches today. And the average width has shriveled from 18 inches to about 16.5 inches.
Airlines are more sensitive to territorial seat skirmishes than ever. But air travelers have developed their own tricks, too. They might save you from being squeezed on your next trip. ❚ What airlines do with oversized
passengers: Oversized airline passengers fall into two broad categories. Some travelers can’t fit into the seats because of their hip size. Others are too tall to contort into an economy-class seat with limited legroom. The ones that generate the most complaints, perhaps unfairly, are the ones who spread into the next seat.
That’s what happened to 73-year-old Sam Cristol. He found himself seated next to a 500-pound, 6-foot-7 passenger on a 5.5-hour JetBlue flight from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco.
“He looked like an NFL lineman,” says Cristol, a food broker from Lake Worth, Florida. “He took up half my seat. My other half was in the aisle while I had to hold on to the seat in front of me.”
Cristol complained to JetBlue, which apologized for the inconvenience. I checked with JetBlue about his flight, and it offered a $100 voucher to both him and the lineman, which was an interesting solution.
JetBlue offers seat belt extenders for oversized airline passengers on its site but is otherwise silent on its passen-
gers-of-size policy. Other airlines require large travelers to buy two seats.
Crew members try to fix these onboard confrontations before takeoff. For example, a flight attendant would have tried to re-seat a passenger like Cristol.
But unfortunately, it was a completely full flight. He also might have asked to trade seats with a smaller passenger, but that wasn’t an option either.
❚ What other passengers are doing about oversized airline passen
gers: So beyond the usual advice – change seats, try to persuade a smaller passenger to take your place, beg for an upgrade – what do you do?
A little kindness would probably take you a long way, says Casey Gardonio-Foat, a small-business owner from St. Louis. “Have empathy for the larger person,” she says. “Remember, they are likely more uncomfortable than you are. That’s because of shrinking airline seats and because of bias and routinely awful treatment of larger people in American society.”
A polite request can help, too. On Stacy Caprio’s last flight, her seatmate took over her armrest and encroached into her personal space. “I asked him, ‘Could we please each keep our arms inside our own seats?’ ” says Caprio, who works for a Canadian coupon website. “He grunted but then mostly complied, which made the flight much more pleasant for me.”
Ken Friedlander was so concerned about passengers who spill into someone else’s space that he invented something to fix it.
It’s a partition called Create-A-Space (createaspace.net, $39) that pushes up against your armrest, clearly delineating your personal room.
“I have found that coming prepared with something to help share the armrest really makes a difference,” he says.
Jen Lowe, a swimsuit designer from San Diego, shared one of the cleverest techniques I’ve heard, although it’s not necessarily one I would endorse. She told me the story of a “super-intrusive” seatmate on a recent flight who refused to move.
Halfway through the uncomfortable flight, the cabin turned cold. And she had an idea. “I just snuggled up to her and put my head on her cuddly shoulder,” she says. “It’s amazing how fast she was suddenly able to retract into her own seat – like, completely.”
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