Gettin’ Carried Away

A few days ago, Twitter, Facebook and Myspace statuses all over the globe were (mostly) angry, criticizing what many people refer to as the ‘fat tax’ that was recently implemented by United Airlines.

Tons of people are outraged at the thought of this policy:

The Association for Airline Passenger Rights wonders if it violates the Air Carrier Access Act, which protects passengers with disabilities. The AAPR took this question so far as to say that there are specific health conditions/medications that cause weight gain and that passengers with this affliction should be protected by the law.

While I am sure that hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the United States are clinically obese, I don’t think that this is the case for every overweight passenger.

An article on CBSnews.com stated that “Between 1960 and 2002, the average American male has gained 25 pounds. The average woman added 24 pounds.” This is not because the average American male and female are clinically obese. This is because our country’s lifestyle has become increasingly sedentary and we have 24-hour access to fast food joints. And even though the economy is struggling, it doesn’t stop us from buying a weekly box of donuts or bag of chips. Life has changed since the 1950’s. Junk food has become a necessity rather than a luxury.

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Before I continue with my opinion on the matter, here are the rules of the new policy, as stated on United.com:

Passengers requiring extra space who:

• are unable to fit in a single seat in the ticketed cabin
• are unable to properly buckle the seatbelt using a single seatbelt extender
• are unable to put the seats armrests down while seated

must purchase a second seat on the flight, only if there are additional seats available. If not, the passenger must wait for another available flight.

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I’m a bigger girl. While I can still fit in the single seat, without a seatbelt extender and with the armrests down, I know that I am a bigger individual. Yes, I would be upset (and embarrassed) if I were told I had purchase a second seat upon checking in at the airport. However, I understand where the airline is coming from. Here’s why:

1. It would cost millions of dollars (and take a long time) to reconfigure the seating in all of the United Airlines planes.
2. Increasing the size of the seats means reducing the number of seats. This means, either more flights need to be scheduled or it will be a little harder for a good number of passengers to book a trip, as less seats are available.
3. If more flights are added each day, more fuel is needed, causing the price of a given flight to skyrocket even more than it already has over the years. (I mean, RyanAir may start charging a pound for a pee to keep their fares low!)

With all that said, while I think that the travel industry should be polite and accommodating, I don’t think they should be forced to comply with our sluggish, fast food-munching lifestyle. Also, I think United has done a great job describing the new policy. Maybe it is offensive to some people, but the airline certainly did not intend it to be.