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Obese Have Right To Two Airline Seats

The Supreme Court of Canada decided to not hear an appeal from Canadian airlines on Thursday, effectively ruling obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one. The Canadian Transportation Agency had made a decision earlier that people who are "functionally disabled by obesity" deserve to have two seats for one fare. The appeal had been launched by Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet. Now they just have to work on more leg room for tall, fat people and complimentary pie.

5 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. What a load of crap by SpuriousLogic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm sorry, but lifting a 400 pound fatass into the sky takes twice as much fuel as lifting a 200 pound fatass into the sky. Just like freight shipping is based on weight. That 400 pound tub of lard is not only getting their healthcare subsidized by people who are healthy, but they are also getting their airfare subsidized. Maybe they should just be banned from airlines altogether - they could use the exercise walking to their destination.

  2. Re:Fuck that by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm the same height and completely agree with you. We should be always entitled to sit in the emergency exit row!

  3. American Airlines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Speaking as a large man, I say fuck you all, seriously, fuck you. I consume no more calories per day than many of you do (under 2k on most days), but I do not loose weight.

    That having been said. I have very little problem with the way Southwest Airlines does this, and has been doing it for quite a while. If I book a flight, I tell them I need 2 seats due to size. If I neglect to tell them, someone at the terminal will pull me aside and discreetly "remind" me that I need to buy a second seat if I have not already done so. Once I do this, its all cool. I even get priority boarding so that I can make sure that I can get 2 seats together (a second seat would not help if one is up front, the other in back). When the plane takes off, if there are no empty seats, I pay for both of the seats I used. If there is even one empty seat on the plane, then the plane is not booked, and the airline views it as I was just using what would have been an empty seat, and they refund the cost of the second seat. (I have to contact them and they send a refund that takes 2-3 weeks, but I get a refund.) If there are empty seats on a plane and the tall guys wants to stretch out a bit, I have no problem with that. If the big guy wants to spread out a bit, no one should have any trouble with that either, so if there are any empty seats, they treat it that way. I have been on flights where I have paid for my second seat, and I have been on flights when I got a refund. They take the money for the second seat even if they know the flight is underbooked. I usually try to book flights off hours just so that I can be pretty sure that there will be empty seats.

  4. Re:A Thought by Chrisje · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you cut off your arm you'd be slimmer, so they could put the obese passenger next to your self-maiming ass.

  5. Re:Fuck that by chrb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It depends what you mean by "can't". If they were incarcerated in some prison in one of the less nice parts of the world, they would lose weight - I don't recall seeing any obese people leaving the Nazi concentration camps. So clearly it is physically possible for them to lose weight. You can argue over whether they are mentally capable of changing their own lifestyles, or even whether they have an "addiction" to food, but the reality is that fat deposits are just a function of energy_in and energy_out.