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Apparently I don't fly enough (or keep up with celebrity news),as this bit of "news" stuned me some what.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100216/en_nm/us_smith_3

For those who don't know,or who don't wish to click the link,Kevin Smith,director of Clerks,Chasing Amy and other films,and actor,most notiably known for his "Silent Bob" character,was asked to disembark from a plane he had boarded for being "to fat".
Apparently the pilot belived that becuase Smith could not fit into one seat he was a "safety risk".


I'm wondering exactly what the guide lines for airline saftey are?
Is this coman airline practice?
I'm 6'4" tall and wiegh 260 pounds,and while I'm not "fat",I am a big guy,will I now have to pay for 2 seats anytime I decide to fly?
Anyone here on Dakka encounter this before & what are your thoughts?
Am I the only one who thinks this policy is a load of bullgak?

Spend a flight sat next to an obese person and see if you still think it's bullgak.

If you need twice the space then buy twice the seats. I don't think thats unreasonable.

LuciusAR wrote:Spend a flight sat next to an obese person and see if you still think it's bullgak.

If you need twice the space then buy twice the seats. I don't think thats unreasonable.

To be fair to Kevin Smith, he was appreciative of this fact; he did actually buy two seats but flew on standby on an earlier flight. His beef was not that he was booted off, rather that they waited until he was seated before telling him.

I'm a big fella and I can relate but I've never had an issue on a flight, I can buckle my seat belt just fine and all that. I think the bigger (pun?) problem is the fact that airline seats are so teeny. Fat people should get free first class upgrades, they could even just have a couple first class seats open and call it the fat people area, I'd be fine with that.

when I'm a bazillionare I want to have my very own 747, and Bruce Dickenson will be my full time pilot. He'll sing Aces High every time we take off.

Wow, I never considered Kevin Smith to be that large of a guy that he would floweth over into the next seat.

And, lets all be honest, why was Kevin Smith not flying first class anyway? We all know he can afford it.

I worked for a couple of airlines. You are talking about a weight issue not a safety issue here. In the airline industry they figure that an avg male weights 189 pounds in the winter and 185 in the summer. When a overweight person is trying to squeze into a seat designed for a 189 pound person you are putting to much weight on the seat and that side of the aircraft.

The airlines not out of safety for the passenger in the next seat are making an overweight person buy two seats it is so the weight is evenly distributed over the same area. The avg overweight person up to 275 pounds can fit into the avg 17 inch seat. I am not talking about a 275 pound body builder but a two pack of ho hos a day and a diet coke habit.

The avg person that they force to buy two seats is people that are 300 plus pounds that are clearly over the 17 inch seat capacity. With the person having two adjacent seats next to another passenger, then the weight distrabution is the sames as three normal passengers in that side of the row and not the weight of four avg passengers.

When I worked for a small regional airline that flew only twin engine turbo props weight was everything. The beechcraft 1900 only has two rows of 17 inch seats, a single row of three 17 inch seats and could only hold 19 avg passengers and 2 pilots. So an extremely obesse person would board the A/C we would have them go to the back of the A/C since it was the only place that they could fit and they had to sit in the center seat. If they sit in the left or right seat it would throw off the center of gravity of the A/C because there is more weight on one side.

You can understand the fun we had when we had 17 passengers that were coming from a Jenny Craig Convention that were all over 350 pounds. We had to leave off luggage so the A/C could get off the ground.

I don't disagree with the policy to charge for two seats if they are necessary. The problem with that, is that I don't recall Kevin Smith actually being big enough to need that, and airplane seats are uncomfortably tiny to begin with.

Another important thing to note, is that two seats does not = one seat for a large person. The seats are in no way designed to function as a single seat when combined, as the seat belts are likely to not work, and the arm rest is likely to jab you in the back the whole flight. I would honestly prefer if airlines had clear guidelines, for maximum dimensions. As it stands, I think that they usually just make a call on the spot, leading to a particularly unfair system.

As FITZZ said, he is a big guy, but not fat. In what way does a 'normal' large guy differ from a guy who is large due to his obesity. There seems to be an awful lot of room for abuse in the system currently used by many airlines.

Pipboy101 wrote:The airlines not out of safety for the passenger in the next seat are making an overweight person buy two seats it is so the weight is evenly distributed over the same area. The avg overweight person up to 275 pounds can fit into the avg 17 inch seat. I am not talking about a 275 pound body builder but a two pack of ho hos a day and a diet coke habit.

I assume you are talking about the difference in waste size. I am not sure exactly what the difference would be, but it does seem to be a particularly flexible system, which leads to random decisions that may often mean absolutely nothing in logical terms.

The overweight person is not sitting in between the two seats but are spilling over into the other seat. Plus they make and use belt extenders just in passenger cars to make the seat belts work, be comfortable and safe.

@ pipboy,
There's your problem; the airlines are going about thinking it's still the 1950s and the average man is 189 lbs. For better or worse, the US has a 30.6% obesity rate http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity and to me at least it's bad business to disregard 30.6% of your market.

I personally have always hated international flights because my knees are in whomever's back is unfortunate enough to sit in front of me yet they always give exit row seats to short, old ladies.

If it's the airlines policy than it's their policy. I have less sympathy for the overweight then I could. At least he didn't get special treatment as a celebrity. Had they allowed him on preferentially then this would probably be a bigger story.

ShumaGorath wrote:If it's the airlines policy than it's their policy. I have less sympathy for the overweight then I could. At least he didn't get special treatment as a celebrity. Had they allowed him on preferentially then this would probably be a bigger story.

I have no sympathy for intentionally stupid people but they still get to breath the same oxygen that I do and, unfortunately, they are prolific breeders...I've sat next to morbidly obese people on planes before as I travel frequently but I've never felt someone should be removed from the plane because of it.

fat guy on plane > dumb, skinny guy on plane

I had to use four extenders for one passenger on an MD-80 once. The woman was so large that she did take up all three seats in one row from the asile to fusilage.

uhhh wow, that's uh....yeah.

Maybe it was papa nurgle in disguise?

Yeah, that is absolutely massive. 3 seats would be around 4'+ across.

How in the hell did this woman even get on the plane?

Lots of Crisco and 6 men pushing her from behind LOL

I've never been on a plane with people as massive as that, but I haven't flown to the USA for several years and when I did it was first class where the seats are equally huge.

As a tall, wide man who could be thinner than he is, I totally fill a standard economy seat myself. I can understand why people would object to being sat next to a whale.

Last time I got to Australia I sat next to a guy who I estimated to be 325lbs for 18 hours. Qantas is a roomy airline, but not roomy enough for that.

This pops up in Oz every now and then on a current affairs program where some obese guy/gal starts bemoaning having to pay for 2 seats.

Perhaps they should be charged per extra pound like I would be if I wanted to cart around 100 pounds more luggage?


And Kevin Smith gets bigger every year.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/kevin-smith-southwest.php

Well she had one of those extra large wheel chairs and it was wider than the passenger egress door. She could not walk so it took four of us to pick her up and carry her to the very first row of seats in A/C.

That was so bad experence working but the worse was when I worked for the small airline. There was a woman too fat to walk up the ramp from the tarmac to the aircraft. The ramp was designed for a special wheel chair not very easy to push even a 150 pound person. She weighed almost 450 pounds and she complained about everything because she was fat. As I pushed her up the ramp she reached into her carry on and pulled out a sandwich. So i was sweating like a fat kid with 45 cents when he wants a 50 cent candy bar pushing this fat up the ramp she started to eat the sandwich.

Mayo shot out of the sandwich and then she farted. When she dropped down into the bench seat in the back of the 1900 the A/Cs tail bounced and the main gears groned.

Im sorry, but people THAT large, just shouldnt fly. Plain and simple. If you need some guys behind, shoving your big ass up a ramp, then you shouldnt be able to fly. Im a big dude, but not even CLOSE to that ball park lol.

There would be a genuine safety issue if a whale, unable to walk under its own power, were put in the emergency exit row.

If the plane crash into the ocean i'd rather be sitting beside a whale rather than a shark any day. Whales tend to nice while sharks will aet you.

G

I was listening to Kevin Smith's Podcast and it seemed like he was able to buckle his seatbelt and put the armrests down, and his seatmates weren't put out by his girth.

If all that is true, Southwest Airlines may have been a bit out of line.

That said... come on, man. Exercise a bit, would you? Lay off the pot and the Ben & Jerry's for a while?

FITZZ wrote: Kevin Smith,

was asked to disembark from a plane he had boarded for being "to fat". Apparently the pilot belived that becuase Smith could not fit into one seat he was a "safety risk".

Is this coman airline practice?

I'm 6'4" tall and wiegh 260 pounds,and while I'm not "fat",I am a big guy,will I now have to pay for 2 seats anytime I decide to fly?

Anyone here on Dakka encounter this before & what are your thoughts?

Am I the only one who thinks this policy is a load of bullgak?

Have you seen Kevin Smith lately?



He's enormous, easily 350 pounds, probably 450+.

Good for Southwest! It's about time more airlines made fatties pay for the space they take up!

It should be. If Airlines charge excess poundage for baggage, they should Airlines charge the same excess poundage for passengers. If Airlines limit the size of my carry-on going into the overhead compartment, they should limit the size of the gut and ass to fit in a single seat.

If you're 260#, you'll fit in a single seat, so no worries.

Sadly, no, I've never encountered this.


Tell you what. You spend 4 hours in coach with the armrests up, sandwiched between a couple Biggest Loser contestant-wannabes, each tipping the scales at 400+, and spilling over onto you for the entire duration. Then you tell us how much BS the policy is.

Wow! Thats the first time ive seem him since.. I dunno.. Mallrats? He sure has piled it on since clerks! Oh and fat people should pay for two seats or not be allowed on. Sorry, thats business.. Same dos huge body builders or oddly massive people. Think about it, if i was running a small struggling movie theatre and i only had 50 seats, should i only get paid for 40 because 10 super fat people want to come? If you take up two seats, you pay for them. gak luck i know, but there you go. I have little sympathy for obese people as since i have left the marines and i train less i have to really make an effort not to gain weight, but make it i do. We all like ice cream fat man! Suck it in and show some fething self control!

Holy feth, I may have to recant my previous statement concerning "BS policy",I had NO idea Kevin Smith had grown to such amazing girth.

mattyrm wrote:Wow! Thats the first time ive seem him since.. I dunno.. Mallrats? He sure has piled it on since clerks! Oh and fat people should pay for two seats or not be allowed on. Sorry, thats business.. Same dos huge body builders or oddly massive people. Think about it, if i was running a small struggling movie theatre and i only had 50 seats, should i only get paid for 40 because 10 super fat people want to come? If you take up two seats, you pay for them. gak luck i know, but there you go. I have little sympathy for obese people as since i have left the marines and i train less i have to really make an effort not to gain weight, but make it i do. We all like ice cream fat man! Suck it in and show some fething self control!

QFT!

More importantly on Airplanes, I can be charged a sheadload extra for excess baggage. Same should go for lard arses. I'm not skinny guy, being around 15.5 stone, but I'm not exactly a big fattyfatfat. And yes, I am aware that this policy may mean I pay more for a flight than say, a girly who is average size. But them's the breaks.

Welcome to America. If you're fat, there's always someone fatter that you can look at and say, "well, I'm fat, but I'm not that fat."

america-where you can meet people who's ass is twice the width of a linebackers shoulders