Even though I blog about it often it still amazes me the amount of discrimination against people of size going on. Thanks to a heads up from Big Fat Blog I was just reading an article by Dever Post Columnist Al Lewis in which he talks about a recent flight that he was sitting next to a larger gentleman. His words in the column as well as the acommpaning blog entry Should Airlines charge by the pound shocked me that a publication such as this would have someone on staff that not only thought like that but would put it in print for hundreds to see.
Mr. Lewis was just the beginning though, he goes on to point out a policy that Frontier Airlines has:
“At Denver’s Frontier Airlines, gate agents eyeball their customers and if someone looks big, they suggest a seat change. The passenger usually doesn’t know why.
“We to try make sure that that person is comfortable, and that the person sitting next to them is comfortable,” said Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas.”
Its bad enough to have to deal with the rest of society staring and making snap judgements. But for a company like Frontier to tell its employees to in affect single out the fat people is just not something that is a good thing no matter how they try to spin the story.
Another problem is seat width. It was stated that the seat width was 17 1/2″. According to airline seat guidelines economy class seating should be at least 30″ wide. This lets me know that Frontier is putting planes into the air that are not up to standard code which would make for an uncomfortable flight for anyone above the size of a typical child. At six feet tall and weighing in at 250lbs even I would be uncomfortable in a seat that narrow. In that regard I guess they do have to eyeball passengers to make sure that the people of today can fit into seats that are built based on designs that are decades out of touch with reality.
It’s still a bad thing that a company of this size would have a policy like this. At least with Southwest Arilines they have told fat people that they need to buy two seats. This undercover activity by Frontier just lets you konw just how bad things are and how much further that things need to go.
