The video of the fold-up seat for the electric wheelchair user shows an enormous open space in front of the seat that I’ve never seen in real life, including in international first class. I wonder how that’s going to work in an actual bulkhead/galley space.
42% of the US is obese and it’s likely increasing.
It’s much lower in the population that can afford to fly, though still increasing.
even the cheap tickets then were like first class (in both amenities and price) today.
But they weren’t cheap. Coach class cost the equivalent of thousands of dollars today. There’s never been an era when people were flying comfortably for a few hundred 2023 dollars. As the article notes, “fares too expensive for anyone but the wealthy.”
“I wonder how that’s going to work in an actual bulkhead/galley space.“
I was wondering about the same thing. Then one of the articles mentioned that the seat is initially designed for a specific model of Airbus flown by Delta. I looked up the seat configuration, and there is a large bulkhead space with only 2 seats on one side of the aircraft in coach where 3 would usually fit. I think the seat will be fine there. Wheelchair operators are super skilled at fitting into tight spaces, like our city buses, so I think it is a viable option.
Charging for 2 tickets can be complicated unless initiated by the passenger or actually not fitting in the seat.
I was just saying that a majority of people are wider now than they were a generation ago. BMI category is the most common data source we have to that shows that. So if people are bigger (and height seems not be increasing in the US much any more) then airlines have to figure out a way to accommodate them. You can charge a few people for 2 seats but you can’t charge a bunch of people double.
I have 2 airline credit cards and I always pay for one and sometimes pay for the other. It’s definitely been worth it for me, but it’s definitely not worth it for many people. It kind d of depends on how much you fly and how flexible you are/if you can take advantage of the benefits offered.
What’s the most diplomatic way of saying “no” to the request to raise the armrest? Even a simple “I’d prefer to leave it down” can sound unkind. I’d really like to know the best way of saying “thanks but no thanks”. There’s also no way to keep them from raising it anyway unless one puts their arms on it ( which Would probably be unpleasant , and most consider that the armrests are for the person in the middle seat. So if the person is in the middle seats can we still say no?
Agree it doesn’t sound unkind, but the plus sized person is asking to be allowed to be more comfortable (at our expense) and we are saying no. It just feels like a no win. It’s more likely they’d just raise it without asking. Then we have to ask to put it down
Though I’m unsure whether it’s true, you could say something like, “Oh, but it’s safer with the armrest down – it helps to keep us in place, just in case.”
If you receive pushback on that, stick to your guns: “Well, you know – safety first!”
Often the entertainment system is controlled through the armrest, so that’s another easy excuse. Or you can just say you need something to grip in terror as you’re a nervous flyer and don’t want to accidentally grab them.
I think one of us is misunderstanding the other. (maybe it’s me!) If the armrests are down, the middle seat person has their seat defined by the armrests, don’t they? If the armrests are up, there are no defined boundaries of seats???
So…we read that the same it appears. And as a middle seat person I want my space. The armrest goes down. Unless of course you want me to scoot my butt over into your space…
We are flying in a few days. Hoping the person between us is an average sized person. We are one of those couples who sits window and aisle because that’s how we prefer to sit. Not because we ever expect an empty middle
Seat, but because DH is usually asleep before the plane takes off and leans up against the window, and I prefer the aisle so I can get up to use the facilities if needed. Most of the time we have had perfectly lovely people between us (and no, we don’t talk across/over them). When we were recently returning from our skiing snafu with our freshly broken bones, we had some entitled bimbo between us who was apparently on a girls trip, and when I explained apologetically that I could not get up out of my seat due to my broken bones when she was getting seated, she seemed to almost threaten that she would have to get up several times to pee because she apparently wanted my aisle seat. Oh well. Nothing I can do. And no,I couldn’t get up to change seats even if I wanted to. Fortunately I have short legs. She could easily get around me. And more fortunately she found another seat so moved.
