Re: Airline making dentists buy extra seat
- From: "NOYB" <noyb@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:17:05 GMT
Wait until the all-u-can-eat buffet lines jump in on this.
"Robert Morien" <PhD_failure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:PhD_failure-94D2AE.21055812042005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Airline making heavyset flyers buy extra seat
> Southwest policy doesn't sit well with 300-pound dentist
> Sunday, March 13, 2005
>
> By Dan Fitzpatrick, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>
> All Murrysville dentist Michael Gigliotti wanted was a relatively cheap,
> last-minute flight from his mother's house in Florida to a natural-gas
> auction in Texas.
>
> Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette
>
> But a $552 bill for the late-February trip quickly went up when a
> late-boarding passenger complained he could not fit in the seat next to
> the
> 5-11, 300-pound Gigliotti. A supervisor from Southwest Airlines boarded
> the
> plane, crouched next to Gigliotti and said he would have to pay for a
> second seat on the return flight, claiming the dentist's large frame
> would
> not fit entirely in the 17-inch-wide space.
>
> Gigliotti did not feel humiliation -- just rage.
>
> "This won't hold up in court," he told the Southwest supervisor.
>
> "It already has," was her response, according to Gigliotti.
>
> The exchange captures a touchy topic in aviation -- how to deal with
> larger
> passengers as the nation's waistline expands. More than one-fourth of
> Americans are now classified as obese, and in an industry obsessed with
> fitting as many people as possible inside a giant aluminum tube, airline
> seats have shrunk to 16 inches measured from arm rest to arm rest --
> narrower than an average-size computer keyboard and a tighter fit than
> the
> typical office chair or general-admission movie seat.
>
> "The airline seats are simply too small for a high percentage of the
> flying
> public," Gigliotti said. "We are getting bigger, we're getting taller,
> we're getting wider."
>
> Southwest is not the only major airline with a large-seating policy. US
> Airways, Northwest Airlines and America West Airlines all can require an
> overweight passenger to pay for two seats but said they do everything
> they
> can to find a pair of empty adjoining seats on the plane at no additional
> charge. Midwest Connect, which serves Pittsburgh from Milwaukee, requires
> that passengers unable to fit in one seat buy two; if there are other
> seats
> available on the same flight, they will be refunded for the second.
>
> But other carriers serving Pittsburgh, including United Airlines and
> Delta
> Air Lines, have no large-seating requirements. Hooters Air, an airline
> featuring slim, scantily-clad "Hooters girls" as flight entertainment,
> has
> no such policy, either.
>
> "We love large people," said Hooters Air President Mark Peterson.
> Hooters,
> which flies from Pittsburgh to Myrtle Beach, S.C., has never charged for
> an
> extra seat, he said, and fitting a larger passenger onboard has never
> been
> an issue in two years of operating the airline.
>
> While critics of Southwest's policy acknowledge that other airlines do
> the
> same thing, some said Southwest deserves to be singled out for its
> rigidity. "Southwest really expects its employees to enforce it, " said
> Mary Ray Worley, a board member on the Sacramento, Calif.-based National
> Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
>
> At other airlines, she said, "it seems to me their employees exercise a
> lot
> more of their own judgment in enforcing or not enforcing their policies.
> A
> lot depends on the prejudices of the employees involved."
>
> The large-seating policy is nothing new for the Dallas low-fare carrier,
> considered one of the industry's most successful companies, having made a
> profit 31 years in a row. It initiated a "customer of size" policy in
> 1980,
> requiring a larger passenger unable to fit in one seat to pay for two.
> But
> the airline, saying it could no longer ignore complaints from slimmer
> passengers, began enforcing the policy more vigilantly in 2002, requiring
> passengers to pay for the extra space even if others were available on
> the
> same flight. A refund is made available if the flight takes off with
> empty
> seats.
>
> Each case is a judgment call. There are no scales at the check-in
> counter.
> The test appears to be whether a passenger can sit in one seat without
> lifting the armrest.
>
> The increase in enforcement, leaked in a 2002 memo from Southwest
> President
> Colleen Barrett, sparked a few lawsuits and criticism from fat acceptance
> groups as well as jokes from NBC "Tonight Show" comedian Jay Leno.
>
> The negative attention was unusual for Southwest, used to glowing PR.
> Leno,
> in one of his monologues, stuck it to the Texas company, saying, "Boy,
> Southwest is cracking down on overweight passengers. Now any fat people
> standing in front of the terminal for more than 15 minutes will be
> towed."
> In another joke, he said Southwest had "been overstating each passenger's
> weight by 80 pounds so they can sell more fat ass seats."
>
> Southwest spokesman Ed Stewart attributed the controversy to
> "entertainment
> value." He mentioned the jokes from Leno and said "the reason you do it
> is
> because you think you can get a laugh out of it and it is something that
> affects everybody." The constant attention has "nothing to do with news
> value." It is little more than "people liking to make fun of other
> people."
>
> Most passengers, he said, like the policy.
>
> "For every 10 letters you get, nine of them will say they did not enjoy
> their flight because someone was sitting on them." Stewart said.
>
> A few, though, were upset enough to sue.
>
> New Hampshire businesswoman Nadine Thompson filed a lawsuit last year
> claiming she had no problem fitting into a Southwest seat but still was
> asked to pay for a second seat on a Manchester, N.H.-Chicago flight. When
> she refused, she was escorted from the plane, according to her lawsuit.
>
> Another woman in Spokane, Wash., filed a suit last year saying Southwest
> humiliated her in front of other passengers on a Orlando-Spokane flight,
> and that she spent the ride home in tears over her experience.
>
> But no one yet has been successful in overturning the policy in court. In
> 2000, a California judge ruled that Southwest's policy was "reasonable
> and
> not discriminatory" after a woman weighing 300 pounds sued. The woman's
> civil rights were not violated, the court said.
>
> But "I still think it's discriminatory to make me buy two seats," said
> the
> 5-foot-1, 350-pound Ray Worley, of the National Association to Advance
> Fat
> Acceptance, who often will call ahead before booking flights to make sure
> there is enough room. "I believe I am entitled to the space I take up.
> It's
> a basic civil right issue. A lot of people believe it is within my
> control
> to be whatever size I am. That is completely false."
>
> When Southwest began enforcing its policy more strictly, it went before
> the
> National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance's annual convention in
> Atlanta to explain it. It did not go well, according to Ray Worley, who
> was
> there. If Southwest hoped to make the policy more palatable, "They
> completely failed. ... The impression I got was they do not want fat
> people
> flying their airline. They don't want our business. They want us to go
> away."
>
> "What would make me want to fly Southwest?"
>
> Airline industry expert Terry Trippler said his biggest problem with the
> policy is its lack of consistency. If gate agents on one end of a round
> trip allow a large passenger to pay for only one seat, then the gate
> agents
> in another city should arrive at the same decision. But it doesn't always
> happen that way, Trippler said, and "everybody doesn't always have twice
> as
> much money for the airline ticket."
>
> "It's a tough call."
>
> Gigliotti, the Murrysville dentist, also has a problem with the way the
> policy is applied. "I think there has to be a measurable standard," he
> said.
>
> "The standard should be, can you put the arms down?"
>
> Gigliotti, who said his shoulders are wider than his waist from
> weightlifting, claims that he was able to get his arms down "without
> undue
> stress." The company, on its web site, said the armrest is the
> "definitive
> gauge." But in a Q&A about the policy on its Web site, Southwest said
> employees can still question the passenger "if a concern exists. ...
> Condoning an unsafe, cramped seating arrangement onboard our aircraft is
> far more inappropriate than simply questioning a customer's fit in our
> seats."
>
> Asked about Gigliotti's experience, Stewart, the Southwest spokesman,
> said,
> "I am sure he is a very slim 300 pounds" and it is "always going to be a
> judgment call." But every time the policy has been challenged, in court,
> "we have prevailed."
>
> Gigliotti was not charged extra for one leg of his trip, from Tampa to
> San
> Antonio, but he was charged for a second seat on the return trip to
> Tampa,
> despite the presence of other empty seats on the plane, he said. He was
> able to get a refund by calling a customer service number, but the
> experience is still with him. He fired off a letter last week to
> Southwest
> calling its policy "arbitrary and capricious."
>
> He vows never again to fly Southwest, even after its starts service from
> Pittsburgh in May. "I just want the public to realize what can happen to
> them if they fly Southwest."
.
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- From: Robert Morien
- Airline making dentists buy extra seat
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