Because Wednesday is boring, and I like to stir the pot.

[mijan]

The headline:
"Skinny Woman bumped off flight so overweight person could have two seats."

Yes, there were circumstances involved.  The overweight person was 14 years old and traveling alone, and had NOT purchased two seats.  However, the "skinny" person had paid full price.  Nobody was asked to voluntarily give up their seat - the skinny passenger

Comments

[mijan]

Several good points. Thank you for mentioning them.

I don't think the woman was forcibly removed, but I got the impression that she was "told" rather than "asked."

At one point, Midwest Airlines had larger seats, which both my spouse and I found quite comfortable. Oh, how times have changed, in just two short years.

[mijan]

It was on the "new" Midwest airlines (a Frontier Airlines plane, actually), that this happened to me last week:

http://mijan.livejournal.com/177232.html?thread=4951632#t4951632

You can imagine my thoughts on Midwest now.

[gmonkey42]

You'd have to call the airline, explain that you are obese, and be at the mercy of the training level of the customer service person and their attitude about fat people.

Exactly. This is why the argument "they should just buy two seats" is bogus. The airlines make it so they can't buy two seats and then blame them when they don't fit into the one they were allowed to buy.

[mijan]

THIS. Is a very important point.

[waterdragon]

Funny story about buying two seats. My son is a Third named after my father and my grandfather... Well we went to go visit my grandfather and once we knew what flight we were to be on, my father went and booked a ticket and didn't use Jr in his name (and since my son isn't legally a third on his passport we couldn't use third on his.) Well the airline had a huge problem with it. Our tickets since they were just reserved and not paid for kept on getting bumped out of the system since ther were two Charles N's on the flight. And we have a very common last name too.