Airlines urged to change rules for plus-sized passengers after photo of man struggling to fit in his seat is shared online
Airlines have been urged to change rules for plus sized passengers after a snap of a traveller on flight went viral online.
Hip-hop group Pretty Ricky, from Miami, Florida, took to Facebook to share the controversial picture of the man as he attempted to get into his aisle seat on a flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen last year. The snap was originally shared by Christopher Elliott, from Washington D.C, who took to his Facebook page, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, to showcase the passenger’s difficulty boarding the flight. The mid-2000s Grind With Me hitmakers claimed airlines have a responsibility to ‘have something in place’ to accommodate everyone.
They wrote: ‘Airlines will have to have something in place for plus-sized passengers. This image was taken recently in a flight showing how difficult it is for people who are bigger than one seat.
‘It’s also difficult for those sitting next to them. It’s a difficult situation because the airline will need to think of a happy medium.’
The post sparked a debate and racked up over 1,600 comments with many suggesting that bigger passengers should have to pay for two seats if they cannot fit in one.
One person said: ‘If they take up two seats, they should pay for two seats.’Another said: ‘Easily solved, if you are this large, you need to buy two seats OR they should make oversized seats for people like this and charge them extra for the larger seat. Plain and simple.
‘The reason the majority of large people are large is not a medical reason, it’s personal choices. And those personal choices have ramifications…’
Someone else said: ‘People who buy one seat shouldn’t have to give half of it to someone spilling in to their seat. If anything they should pay half.’
A fourth said: ‘Tall people with long legs have to pay for extra leg room, I see no reason for wide people to be treated differently.’
Another added: ‘As someone who is currently down 90lbs, being largely overweight is a choice 99 percent of the time.
‘Many overweight people simply lack motivation and drive to lose weight for many different reason, but it comes down to choice. If you choose to be larger and impede others space significantly like this, it’s your responsibility to buy another seat to accommodate this.
‘There’s no way being this large in a seat like those are even comfortable for people so large, and why be miserable the whole time. It’s brutal.’
Meanwhile others suggested that passengers should be weighed just like luggage before getting on the plane.
