Fat passenger tax coming

 

Airlines are introducing rules about the size of travellers

BAD NEWS IS coming for economy class airline passengers. You think the seats are small now? They're going to shrink further. Soon, economy class seats will have room for only one buttock instead of the conventional two. Decide now which buttock you are going to favor. Or practice taking turns, right, left, right, left, five minutes each.

Current trends suggest there will soon be three classes of airline seat: first, business, and electron microscope.

This is not because airlines are changing seat sizes. It is because humanity is changing passenger sizes. Expanding travelers are flowing right over the seats next to them. On several occasions I have found myself sitting on the armrest or the tray table.

More than a thousand complaints have been filed in the past 12 months by crushed travelers squeezed into half an economy seat or less.

On one flight, I sat next to a guy who was stuck fast between his armrests as I got off. He is probably still there today. (That was two weeks ago, so he may be a bit slimmer now.)

Sitting next to me on the flight, or more accurately, sitting on me during the flight, the guy wanted sympathy: he told me that life was getting harder for big passengers like himself.

US airlines (Southwest, Delta, Northwest and United) force him to pay for two seats. European airlines, such as Ryanair, are introducing a "fat tax" on large travelers. "This is just the beginning," he fumed. "The latest proposals are to change the entire ticket pricing system so that all passengers are charged by weight. This is outrageous."

Whether it is outrageous or not, it's not going to happen. Western folk are heavier than Asians. Men are heavier than women. Rich folk are heavier than poor folk.

Think about it. Proposal lands on desk. "Penalize passengers who are wealthy, white and male," it says. "Give an advantage to those who are poor, Asian and female," it adds.

How will international policy makers, who are nearly all (you guessed it) wealthy, white and male, respond? "I don't think so," they'll say, filing the proposals in the floor-standing circular filing cabinet with the used coffee cups, soiled napkins, discarded interns, etc.

A few days ago, researchers released an intriguing report saying that while millions of people have grown fat and millions have gone on diets, the two groups hardly overlap at all. That's because they are different sexes.

The average man is overweight but remains blissfully unaware of it, while the average woman is not overweight but is on a diet, according to a multi-country study at the National Institute of Demographic Studies in France.

This doesn't surprise me at all. My male friends insist their massive pot-bellies are pure muscle (from all the digesting, you see). And every woman I know is on a diet, including the ones who are so thin they can pass through closed doors.

In the meantime, there's only one way to ensure you get a bit of space to yourself in the economy class cabin. Take along a sombrero, an "I survived Mexico" t-shirt and a fake cough. And watch the rows of seats open up like magic.

Comments

[Kivuos]

I am not fat, only a little bit muscular (I mean pot bellied) with a weight of around 200 pounds. Airline fares now being proportional to the weight will give me an incentive of hitting the gym daily to reduce my weight.
By the way, a t shirt caption of "I have swine flu" is also a good idea to free up a few seats

[TS]

Don't you just hate to pay for overweight luggage when the guy in the line behind you is twice your size?
I say that the combined weight of a passenger and her/his luggage should be taken into account.

Suggested the sombrero and fake sneezes followed by an: "Ai Caramba" to the wife the other day, should give us some space on the tube in the morning.

[Vince A]

Well, if the policy makers are male, white, and wealthy, the outlook is not very good for us who are Asian, poor, and good-looking. They will soon be taxing thin people for wasting space.

The airline seat width is designed for the average-sized Western person (now extinct). People who do not measure up to the provided width have not only wasted valuable airplane space, but have also caused unnecessary discomfort to wider people -- the airline could have given them that extra space. Hence, your fault, your tax.

Children will also be heavily taxed for underusing seat space. Why do kids have to travel anyway? When was the last time your 8-year old needed to attend a conference? Has your 6-year old recently asked you to bring her to the ruins of Borubudur?

The problem of course, is that the airline industry is trying to solve this problem by thinking outside the box.

The solution is to think like a box.

Do warehouses have armrests between boxes? Of course not. Armrests take up space.

It was only some nitwit in the airline industry who decided armrests are needed. Taxis don't have armrests. Buses don't have armrests. The MRT and the MTR don't have armrests, and they are the best public transport in the world. Why do we need armrests in the airplanes?

See, when you do away with armrests, then the full power of computers can be used to arrange seating for optimal use. Sumo wrestlers will be assigned beside Posh Spice. Pear shaped people will be assigned to sit beside people who are shaped like, well, inverted pears. Children will be seated 6 in a row.

[Nury]

Vince, this is hilarious, you should really be writing a newspaper column yourself. What do you do? Whatever it is, you are wasted doing it.

[Vince A]

Nury, I just enjoy working with the insightfully funny material you come up with everyday (Every day! Really amazing).

[Nury]

I could say the same about you and fardel and angela and others, you come up with great stuff all the time. It's a pity the publishing industry is going down the tubes, we could do a great magazine

[Big guy]

Dear Mr Jam, I was the big guy who was sitting next to you on that flight.

It's not true to say that you were sitting on half your seat.

You were, in fact, sitting in the armrest ashtray most of the time.

[sheilajade]

I have seen on tv, not so long time ago, a man who underwent a very strict diet (consuming mostly protein) after he felt embarrassed when his company who was sending him on a business trip had to pay double airfare because he was so overweight.
If my memory serves me well, i think after a year of dieting, he was transformed into a very attractive hunk (with real muscles -- not the pot belly). He should be an inspiration to most men of today, that nothing is impossible.

[Uli Dernbach-Steffl, Germany]

TS, you just gave me the teary-eyed giggles with your fake sneezes accompanied by "Ai Caramba!"...!
And Vince, I heartily agree with Nury: you should write columns, too!!
I had a beautiful encounter with a Russian man weighing an estimated three hundredfifty pounds in 1992 on my return flight from Beijing via Moscow to Germany.
I had bought a lot of books and presents for friends / family in China and my luggage was 4 kilograms overweight. The man at the counter (also Russian) insisted I could not unpack but should pay for the foud kilos overweight. After some discussion the heavy-set Russian who stood in line after me, offered to charge it to one of his two (!!!!) flight tickets. As there had been neither First nor Business Class on that flight, he explained, he always bought two tickets in order to accomodate himself properly. He was really a character!
However, the clerk didn't acquiesce so I paid up on the condition that my onboard luggage (which until that point he had failed to notice completely) would go unweighed and uncounted. This was okayed.
The clerk went pale when he saw two friends helping me put on my backpack weighing 69 kilograms (containing only books and wood carvings) and two other small bags. The huge Russian nearly laughed his head off and wanted to sit in the same row with me. We had a really good time until Moscow!

[Rika]

Oh I just love Vince's idea of getting rid of the armrests. I always take aisle seat. It firstly allows for quick access of the loo and secondly provides one arm rest. I once sat in the middle and although I am not what one would call tiny or shy the people next to me claim the arm rests instantly. Thanks to the rests the agressively poking elbows were just at the height of my kidneys so I feared for my life not from the airplain falling off the sky, but from bruised inner organs.

Now! Aisle seat, and to an extent window seat, give some relief to that problem, but should one nodd off one is either getting a freezing cold head from the cabin wall, or it gets knocked off entirely by the passing drinks trolley.

And now imagine to be safely and neatly packed between people snuggly slotting into one anothers shape like a jigsaw puzzle: How wonderfully cosy! Always a shoulder or a pot belly to sink against; nice and warm and protected against the blast of the aircon.

Eventually the travel experience of the 50s would be back, when a family of five would happily be travelling for camping in a Fiat 500

[Alan Cooper]

Personally, I think paying by total weight is an excellent idea. Why should I pay for excess baggage when the guy behind me weighs twice as much as me?

After all the airline calculates the fuel needed by total weight of the aircraft and an accurate knowledge of this would allow them to calculate the fuel needed more accurately.

I see a lady in England is running a campaign against Marks and Sparks who charge £2 extra for any bra bigger than DD size (she is a 30G!!!) but why should she pay the same as someone who's bra needs much less material and "engineering"? It's the same principle.

[sheilajade]

Uli Dernbach-Steffl, Germany: you must have the power of an ant who can carry 10-50 times its body weight to carry all your luggages as you have mentioned here.
My boss also have done that, bringing along with her several solid cement sculpted in the form of the Buddha's head. It must have weigh a ton, i couldnt even move it. And she said that she had put it on the compartment over head, good it didnt fell on anybody's head.

[fardel]

St Martin airlines good morning
- Do you have two seats for next flight?
- Yes , we do
-I would like to make a reservation, two seats side by side please.
- All our seats are side by side Sir;what are the passengers's names?
- John X right ans John X left;
I am a little big and I like to travel in comfort.

silence

[farah]

Asian people are willing to do anything to avoid paying extra money even if it means carrying a 6 yr old, 45 kg child on your lap the entire way from Bangladesh to US (and not being able to stand on foot the entire time in US until it's time to return)

[jason]

The saddest thing is, most of these grossly overweight people refuse to admit they have a problem, regardless of whether self inflicted or otherwise, and instead claim discrimination.

I recall one such girl at school, who refused to admit she had an eating problem, yet at lunch time, she'd be hoeing into 3 or 4 hamburgers. Go figure.

Really though, airlines won't start charging for weight. Instead, they'll simply lift the ticket fares for everyone. Why not also charge more for a tiny, weightless Asian woman if you can manage it? What's more, there's precedent for this.

When it comes to freight, airlines take both the weight and the volume of the cargo, and then charge the customer whichever costs more. Standard airline practice.

[Uli Dernbach-Steffl, Germany]

@sheilajade: actually I'm not. But then being a desperate student of 23 without too much money left you grow immensely with your challenges ;-)))

[fardel]

A new kiddult is in town.
What happened to the readers.
Are we only five courageous enough to send our pictures?

[Rika]

Is there a gallery somewhere to see the gang in one swoop, I don't remember anymore to which columns they were attached...

[Lisa]

I seriously think airlines should charge overweight people unless said people can provide medical evidence that their unhealthy weight is hereditary or sumfink rather than induced by environmental factors.

[fardel]

Yes

but to be fair, there should be a reference weight with overcharge for people above and discount for people below the reference, with extra discounts to light or air headed passengers.

[jason]

What about people who are simply full of hot air? I think they should be taxed off aircraft as well, not just those who are overweight.

[Eddie]

Yes please! Fat people should pay for the extra fuel they are using the carry them. I fully support a change to overall weight pricing instead of the ridiculous excess baggage charges. Like my extra 5kgs of baggage will consume more fuel than the extra 50kg of body on the next passenger. It is still weight and should be charged as such.

And obesity is NOT a disease. Other than the VERY small percentage that are fat due to real illnesses, most people just stuff their face with junk food until they can't even fit through a door, and then blame discrimination when they are required to actually pay for consuming more fuel. God only hopes the airlines will just pass this surcharge on the other, leaner passengers. I refuse to be charged extra for your lack of self control!!