Man Sues American Airlines Because His Aisle Was Full Of Fat People
Reader poll: who really had the worse flight?
If my seat were like this, I’d let them beat me up when they overbooked. (Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images for British Airways)
Who has it worse: the fat person on the plane, or the skinny person sitting next to the fat person on the plane?
I say the skinny person. As a fat person, I have the option of not giving a flying f**k about whether my “spillover” bothers the person I’m squished next to, PLUS I don’t have to worry if there is a hotel gym at my destination.
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Don’t get me wrong, flying while fat is uncomfortable and there is a whole lot of body shaming that goes on. But in most cases, I’d rather live with my choices than be subjected to other people’s choices. When I fly, I do what I can to contain my svelte figure in my allotted seat. But fundamentally, my girth management is my choice, the person sitting next to me just has to hope I’m as decent about it as I happen to be.
All that said, in the eternal battle between the healthy and husky over seat space, there is one common enemy: the airline industry that squeezes us all in there like sardines for profit.
The airlines are also the people with the deepest pockets. From the Daily Telegraph:
A man in Australia is suing American Airlines after he was seated next to two obese people for a fourteen-hour flight – an ordeal which he claims caused permanent back and neck injuries.
Michael Anthony Taylor, 67, said the airline refused to let him move seats, leaving him “crouching, kneeling, bracing or standing” for much of the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles.
He said his uncomfortable position during the flight exacerbated his scoliosis and caused lower and upper back injuries as well as bruising to his neck.
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My only experience with the Sydney to L.A. route is the television show Lost, so I’m imagining a frail Benjamin Linus getting wedged in next to Hurley and vowing revenge.
I am not entirely unsympathetic to Taylor’s case, but there are some key facts to consider. The flight was full. There were no other spare seats he could be moved to. Taylor asked to sit in the jump seats, but the airline is not allowed to seat passengers in crew seats. Pretty much the only thing American could do was ask everybody on the plane — “Who wants to sit next to the great big fat person?” — and that doesn’t seem like proper customer service either.
When you sign up for a 14-hour flight, you take the risk that you are going to be sitting next to a fat person. Or a baby. Or somebody smelly. Or somebody incessantly chatty. Or a 67-year-old who is kvetching about his back the whole flight. Sitting next to a fat person is no more inconvenient than any of those other things.
These are the risks we take when flying coach. I avoid taking any kind of transportation that puts me in contact with “the public” whenever possible. When I am on the subway or a plane, I just hope I reach my destination alive and un-terrorized. Being uncomfortable is very survivable.
Taylor at least has the good sense to keep his ire focused on the faceless corporate enterprise:
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“I don’t hold any malice towards the people in the seats next to me – they’d paid for a ticket too,” he told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.
I think Taylor’s problem is that he thought his ticket entitled him to a comfortable flight. That’s not what the airlines are selling, to Taylor or to his overweight aisle-mate.
In any event, I asked a question at the top, and I want an answer: who has it worse?
Who has it worse on a long flight?
Loading ...‘Squashed’ Australian sues American Airlines after he was seated between obese passengers for 14 hours [Daily Telegraph]
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
