Airbus Introduces Extra-Wide Aisle Seats—for a Price

When author Ragen Chastain flew cross-country on United Airlines to give a talk at Dartmouth College last year, she sat in a standard coach aisle seat. At 5-foot-4 and 284 pounds, Chastain couldn’t fit comfortably in the Boeing 757’s 17-inch-wide seat. “One flight attendant kept slamming into my shoulder—on purpose—every time she went by,” she says. Chastain wasn’t forced to buy another ticket on that flight, but she knows she may have to next time. “Airline employees look at someone and try to assess whether or not they’ll fit,” she says, “which can lead to people being embarrassed by ticket agents.”

These are hassles that face overweight and tall travelers, as there aren’t any regulations in the U.S. for airlines to accommodate them. American, Delta, and US Airways will try to find an extra seat; if one isn’t available, the flyer will be bumped to a later flight. On United, flyers who can’t fit into a coach seat are required to buy two. It was the same on Southwest, until it wasn’t. In 2010, Hollywood director Kevin Smith was removed from a Southwest flight for being too plump for his seat. “You f-‍-‍-ed with the wrong sedentary processed foods eater!” Smith tweeted afterward. (Southwest later rewrote its policy; it no longer charges for an extra seat.) As of April, those traveling internationally on small, Pacific-based carrier Samoa Air have to pay more than their slender seatmates after the airline announced it would charge passengers according to weight. “A kilo is a kilo,” explained Chief Executive Officer Chris Langton in a statement.