Should Overweight People Pay More to Fly?

Filed in archive Travel on June 19, 2008

The miami herald is again bringing up a subject that rears its fat head every so often:

With airlines now charging passengers for checked-in luggage, refreshments and other previously free services, we want to know your opinion on another much discussed idea: charging passengers by weight. Should passengers exceeding a certain weight be charged more?

If you've ever sat in an airplane next to someone who takes up more room than a single seat offers, you know it can be annoying to have to jockey for space, or have to simply give up so you're not forced to touch your neighbor the whole way to your destination.

But should that person pay more for his/her size? And, if so, what do they get for their extra money? Should airplanes be forced to create a jumbo seat row for larger passengers, with a higher ticket price? It doesn't seem fair that a person would pay more due to his/her weight but still get the same seat as the 130-pounder in the next seat.

Shaquille O'Neal is 7'1" and 325 pounds. He's huge, but probably wouldn't be considered overweight. So what's the overweight cutoff? 250 pounds? 300 pounds? 400? 500? You'd catch plenty of people over 250, even a few over 300, but there aren't that many 400-pounders out there.

Should we all have a weigh-in as we board and be charged $5 per pound for our seat?

In my opinion, if airlines want to charge more to overweight people, they need to offer them something more. Forcing them to buy two seats would be fine except for the fact that it's pretty hard to sit in the middle of two seats to accommodate your body, so you'd just end up sitting in one seat and trying to let your body hang over to one side. I'll bet that's really comfortable. Bottom line: If you're going to charge more, you have to give the passenger more - namely, a larger seat built specifically for larger people.

What do you think?