Plainly stupid: more room for fatties on planes 26, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Random.trackback
There’s a reoccurring story over at Slate centered around whether fat people should have to pay more for services because they are fat. The simplest example of this is with health-care. In America if you are fat you will pay more for your health care. To me, in just about every way, this is a non-argument: if you are fat statistics unequivocally dictate that you’re going to need more healthcare. You are, therefore, simply paying more for more health care. I don’t see the problem.
The latest in this quasi-series is a simply staggering article, even by the usually curious standards of fat-logic. Using the analogy that tall can people pay for better legroom on a plane, this article is actually arguing that plane manufacturers should adapt plane designs and configurations to accommodate fat people.
Most of them [fat people] don’t need two seats side-by-side any more than we long-legged guys need two seats front-to-back. Like us, they just need a few extra inches. … If United can swap out a row of three normal coach seats for two wide ones, two fat people should be able to buy those seats for an extra 50 percent instead of an extra 100 percent. That’s the simplest nonbinary solution. But if the flight is full, or if swapping out a seat row is too difficult, here’s an alternative: Let other passengers sell part of their seat width to those who need it.
A few points to think about:
1) There are already seats with extra room in Business and First Class.
2) Yes, these seats are more expensive, but that is life. Is the author suggesting that because fat people have eaten themselves to a state where they can’t fit in a seat they should be rewarded and have the luxury of a larger seat at a what amounts to reduced rate? Would they get one and a half servings of food too?
3) At a time when aviation is struggling massively (pardon the pun) and American aviation more so, is it really a good idea to add more costs onto such business? For surely if the actual costs or reconfiguring/retro-fitting planes were to be recouped by the airlines/manufacturers they would essentially be charging Business class prices…
4) Another passenger should sell part of their seat width. Has this person ever been on a plane? Who could or would sell a few inches of their seat? Unless they’re a child or vastly anorexic this is just impossible.
5) A tall person is born tall, it is not (since the rack went out of fashion at least) something that a person can affect one way another. Fatness, on the other hand…
The Gulf blog 
[…] on earth. It is the source of many a joke and general mirth. Hence, for example, a story I posted some time ago about fatties complaining that airplane seats aren’t big enough for their ever-expanding, […]