Sit Next to a Fat Person, Get Cash

Things like this are so ridiculous, the problem of tiny cramped airline seats gets ignored and a woman's negative experience is blamed on the fat person that was sitting next to her, NOT the greedy airline that squished them in like sardines in a tin can. Also, on a long flight, if you were in pain, being crushed, injured, etc. and flight attendants had nowhere else to put you, wouldn't you get up and walk around? Spend most of the time sitting on the toilet, standing in the aisle? I don't know, it seems odd to me that this woman would just sit there and be injured to the point of being bed ridden without doing anything other than complaining.

Since when does being thin indicate that one treats their bodies with respect? Heroin addicts are usually quite lean but I don't think filling their veins with junk is a respectful or particularly healthy act. My point is, the wrong people are being blamed for this problem. Saying that widening seats for people who need (or would like) a bit more room then what is the current standard would end up costing everybody more, is the same reactionary attitude that usually blames poor single mothers and their welfare checks for high taxes, even though such a small percentage of tax dollars actually go to those kinds of programs. I don't think fat people are the problem here, and I don't think anyone, regardless of their size should have to justify or explain their lifestyle in order to receive what I think is a very reasonable amount of courtesy and respect.

Does this lawsuit seem suspicious to anyone else? Why would this person put up with so much pain for no apparent reason? Why does no one blame the airlines for squeezing way too many passengers in to make money, which is the real problem? It seems to me that the airlines' greediness is the underlying issue here, but not only that, the thin lady did not have to accept her seating arrangement in the first place. Certainly, she could have asked someone else to trade places, or to be able to take the next flight if they hadn't left the gate yet.

I think the woman actually asked to be moved or for the other passenger to be moved. Virgin refused and they were very unhelpful, saying this is what she should expect in economy. In this case both passengers were treated badly: the fatter woman couldn't move to another seat (she was too tall for her legs to fit in) and the thinner woman got a blood clot on her side where she was crushed. In this case Virgin should have upgraded one of them to Upper Class. To be honest in this case I don't blame the thinner woman, she had a case against the airline, she asked repeatedly to be moved and was told there were no other economy seats. This must have been so embarassing for the fatter woman, there's nothing she could have done to prevent crushing this person apart from seating elsewhere and they wouldn't let her. Virgin could have solved this easily by upgrading a passenger. The way the media reported this lawsuit was shocking, calling the fatter woman 'grotesque' and other names. I hope this prompts people to ask why airlines can get away with such tiny seats. Aside from the width issue, most people over 5'8" can't take the right position for an emergency landing. Small seats are a safety issue. What we need is an international minimum standard of seat pitch and seat width that reflects the fact that the population is getting taller and fatter.

Ok, if the thin lady really did ask to be moved and the airlines refused, that was definitely inconsiderate on their part. They need to realize that squeezing people like sardines into airplanes to make money at the expense of public safety is as unethical as what the execs at Enron did.

The airlines are in a no win situation here. If they make it mandatory to buy two seats if you are fat (like Southwest did) then they get a lot of heat for that. If they don't, and the airline is full, then they are in this situation. I agree that airline travel has gone to the point of being painful due to decreased pitch (I am a fairly tall man) and frustrating in the extreme, but then we as a society decided about twenty years ago to deregulate the airlines and so we have no one but ourselves to blame.