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Fat Guy in a Little Seat - Airlines, ADA, and Accessability
Posts
I say, don't fuck around with bigger seats for some people. Mandate that airlines give everyone who needs one an extra seat for free. (Some people need an extra seat because they are travelling with an aide for their disability, for instance. A bigger seat won't help when you have a literal second person!) Everyone pays in the form of increased ticket prices across the board. Like Canada does. Boom, done.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Edit: I'm not sure it's the best solution to the wider issue; just these particular attacks on it don't persuade me
Logistically, "two seats for some people" is the same as "bigger seats for some people". If you operate under a system where the people getting two seats pay the same as the ones getting one seat, you will have to come up with a way to handle allocation:
1. If you do it at booking time, you need an objective criterion for eligibility and an enforcement mechanism against fraudulent self-reporting.
2. If you do it at boarding time, you will have to do establish a preference ranking.
Canada uses a mixed system from what I read. You need a physician-provided butt measurement to qualify. But the airline may not have an extra seat at booking, in which case tough luck.
Oh it would lead to straight up fistfights, it needs to be an at booking solution. Even though it is very rare, airlines deboarding people due to overselling flights is 1000% bullshit. Modern travel is just to interconnected for bumping people off flights to not lead to domino failures for peoples arraignments.
Flights are super full right now. Every one of the 6 flights I've taken in the last month have had standby lists; some over a dozen people long. I had a coworker who had a flight from Charlotte to O'Hare canceled. People were getting rebooked on flights 3 entire days later, he ended up renting a car and driving the 12 hours.
I actually had to come back and revisit this. While the arm rest does go down past the top of the seat, it doesn't go all the way down, and there in fact may be a lever/button on the bottom of the rest that allows it to be moved. I have no intention of being in a position to test but that would be neat. (Doubt you can have it up for take off but still.)
Could do the whole overbooking pay people to give up their seat thing, but that's pricy. Plus I think that'd go a bit beyond a reasonable accommodation if it gets to the point where they need to boot someone involuntarily. A second seat for free, sure. A second seat that means you fly but someone else is forced to miss their flight and lose however much of their vacation or whatever else would happen due to being bumped seems like a bit much. That's not the company taking the hit anymore.