fat people and planes

ferf1223

Tojo_Ralph wrote: »

.....
"Hollywood director Kevin Smith told to get off a Southwest Airlines plane because he was too fat"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjESoE0STMw&feature=player_embedded

http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/joanburnie/2010/02/youre-in-no-shape-to-fly-kevin-1.html

And the full story...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/kevin-smith-v-southwest-a_b_470024.html

http://smodcast.com/smods/smodcast106.html - language warning for those that might upset.

So despite the fact that he was able to contain himself to his seat with the armrests down, he was removed anyway.

I should add that I met my husband 10 years ago because of Kevin Smith, so I'm perhaps more likely to come down on his side of things generally...but from all I've read, he didn't violate their policy regarding customers of size.

Altarf

ferf1223 wrote: »

So despite the fact that he was able to contain himself to his seat with the armrests down, he was removed anyway.

Yeh right. http://earthnocentric.blogspot.com/2008/10/kevin-smith-im-really-really-fat-right.html

He really looks like he wouldn't be oozing out into the seats either side, and would be nice and comfy to sit next to.

So I assume there was some really strange photoshop work to shrink the size of his head and legs, relative to the rest of his body.

ferf1223

well, that photo IS 18 months old. He's wearing baggy shorts and a baggy sweatshirt, and he's a relatively short guy so I wouldn't say it's the best thing to judge by. But as far as I know, no one has denied that he was able to fit in his seat with the armrests down and without a seatbelt extender...if armrests down is the guide they are to use, it doesn't sound like they applied that guide in this case.

Dr.Rock

Tragically planes have crashed due, in part, to failure to correctly calcuate their laden weight. Surely the safest thing to do would be to weigh passenger and bags at check-in and either set combined weight allowances, or close check-in and make alternative arrangements for those remaining once the total weight for the plane has been checked in. Obvioulsy the first suggestion would be most sensible/feasible.
Even by asking passengers to notify of their weight when booking you could get an accurate enough figure to see whether it was within the safe range, even allowing for self-reporting errors.

To get back to the original point however I think that if you buy one seat you should occupy one seat. If there are empty seats then people can be spread out but if it's full then why should someone who has paid the going rate for their seat be inconvenienced. This is regardless of the reasons.

Murphy_The_Cat

Dr.Rock wrote: »

Surely the safest thing to do would be to weigh passenger and bags at check-in and either set combined weight allowances, or close check-in and make alternative arrangements for those remaining once the total weight for the plane has been checked in..

Going back a few years, I took a multi leg flight, deep into Little Town America. The final leg of the flight was in a Jet Stream 31. On the outbound flight, they were very careful to distribute the passengers / luggagein the way that kept the plane flying straight and true.
On the inbound flight, they struck a problem. The flight was fully booked. Unfortunately, thare were a few bigger people (me for one), and a few people travelling trans continental who were taking 2 suitacases each. The end result was that 2 people got turfed off/denied the flight because the plane would have been overweight - despite it having 2 seats empty.

So who is at fault here.

Dr.Rock

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Going back a few years, I took a multi leg flight, deep into Little Town America. The final leg of the flight was in a Jet Stream 31. On the outbound flight, they were very careful to distribute the passengers / luggagein the way that kept the plane flying straight and true.
On the inbound flight, they struck a problem. The flight was fully booked. Unfortunately, thare were a few bigger people (me for one), and a few people travelling trans continental who were taking 2 suitacases each. The end result was that 2 people got turfed off/denied the flight because the plane would have been overweight - despite it having 2 seats empty.

So who is at fault here.

That was fortunate that happened. The incident I was thinking about originally happened on a US Regional Flight in the midwest with a Beechcraft (similar sized aircraft): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481
Obviously the weight issue was only one of a number of factors but it is scary how inaccurate thousands of weight calculations must have been for many years, and how it can make a difference.
Getting the weight and balance correct is obviously more important on smaller aircraft and involves fewer people, but on larger planes any errors or undercompensations would be multiplied by a greater degree.

wallbash

Years ago , I flew around the North Sea Oil rigs , we were always weighed before flying , it was easy and fast.