Airline Seats

As Americans get larger and airlines reduce flights to ensure full occupancy, air travel has gotten increasingly less comfortable.  My 155 lb body fits well in a standard airplane seat, but even I don’t have excess room.  So that is why you see concerned looks on the faces of seated passengers when a 300 lb  guy sweating through his business suit, toting an overstuffed rollerboard walks down the aisle looking for his seat.  Those looks of concern then change to relief when Jumbo passes their row.  Whew!  Someone else gets the pleasure of being cozy with the slabs of beef that flow around the armrest constraining their already tight space. 
 

On a recent flight, I was tucked into my snug seat comfortably reading a newspaper when the guy in front of me decided to take a nap. Of course he reclined his seat the maximum amount possible, intruding into my space so much that I could easily count his hair roots.  The paper got pushed into the never land where my progressive eyeglass lenses wouldn’t focus and I had about as much room as if I’d ridden out the flight in the toilet. 

I have two suggestions, rather, pleas for the airlines.  First, do not succumb to any pressure to increase the size of seats.  At the risk of sounding cruel, obese people shouldn’t fly, especially on smaller planes.  When the flight attendant on a small plane asks people to move to the front or back to even out the weight distribution, it is clear that size matters, and grossly overweight people are not making flights safer for the rest of us.  Seats built for what used to be average size adults discourage the obese from getting on airplanes and that’s good for the rest of us.  If you can’t fit in a standard seat, buy two tickets. Second, seats should be locked so that they don’t recline.  Sitting up straight is better for your back and must be safer since the flight attendant always makes us “return your seats to their full and upright positions” for takeoff and landing. 

My apologies to anyone whom I’ve offended with this post.  But to my engineering mind, all airplane passengers are not created equal and lighter ones are better, both for safety and for comfort.