double ticket for double weight

A leading Australian nutritionist has urged airlines to charge obese passengers more for their seats.

Fat people can be embarrassing for their neighbours on planes. Passengers, although using common transport, need privacy. So sitting next to a very fat passenger gives the impression of being surrounded by a towering body which can even eclipse free view.

In the USA, the CNN reported some years ago the case of two fat black women companions who had complained about being obliged to pay double ticket each. They asked to pay for three tickets instead of four but this was refused. The airliner carrying them said that policy wasn’t enforced in internal flights but just on international ones.

As airliners have lenient policies towards the handicapped, it should have the same policy towards fat people as long as this doesn’t pose a problem to the passengers or affect the weight limits an aircraft has in transporting goods and people. There are some scientific researches showing that obesity can be genetic. So such fat people shouldn’t have double punishment: living with the medical consequences of their obesity and paying double for flights. After all, none of us choose to have an unpopular and unhealthy shape.

As a compromise, I suggest that airliners should “penalise” fat people through their luggage. If a fat person weighing, say, 120 kilogram and the normal weight should be 80 kilogram, they should carry only light luggage with them or they should pay double for the 40 kilograms of luggage weight if they have a heavy one instead of paying a double ticket. I know this sounds illogical.

But forcing people to pay double ticket to reduce weight won’t have the desired effect. There can be many fat people who rarely take a plane. Others used to taking first class will circumvent this penalty by taking second class. They can’t have the same comfort but at least they won’t feel they have paid double. So this decision to double the fee can be just symbolic. Its effect or popularity should be measured if it is implemented in other means of common transport like buses and trains, underground metros. Perhaps the most strident measure can be if fat people are given an ultimatum to reduce weight or they will lose their jobs or if recruitment for a job is based on weight.