I was flying from Albuquerque to Phoenix. On Southwest Air, I got my “A” boarding pass and took my window seat. Some guy took the aisle seat and the flight filled up. At this point, there were only about 3 empty seats on the plane — all middle seats. As you can imagine, some guy boarded the plane and he was all of about 350 pounds and no way is he going to fit into a middle seat with the arm rests down. Mind you, I’m 6′3″ tall and 230 pounds. I fit just fine in my seat with the arm rests down.
So the 350 pound guy comes up and asks me if I can switch seats to “accommodate him.” I pretended not to hear him — lost in my book. So he stands there and goes to grab a flight attendant. The flight attendant comes up and asks if I can fit into another empty seat and points to an empty middle seat between two guys bigger than me! Then she asks if we would be willing to raise up our arm rests to fit the 350 lb guy.
Just then, a guy came up from out of nowhere looking for a seat. I quickly waved him into my middle seat and he sat down. Now it’s a full flight and the only open seat for the 350 pound guy — with gaping sweat stains all over — was between two guys who already needed to have the arm rests up to fit. The 3 of us in our row sat there laughing at this whole experience as this guy finds out that he should’ve bought 2 seats.
After 10 minutes of more wrangling, they found one guy to move into that middle seat and then have a guy and a girl squeeze in their row into 1 and a quarter seats while the 350 pound guy sat down.
To top it off, he smelled bad and then he had these wet hacking coughs all through the flight.
Tagged as:
flight attendant,
odor,
portly,
seats,
southwest airlines
I am in a rock band that is somewhat famous yet not famous enough to own its own private jet. So needless to say my band mates and I fly a lot.
On one of our flights I walk down the aisle and was horrified to see the huge man sitting there in my seat (aisle seat). He explained calmly to me that I could have his seat which was next to him; the bassist got the window seat. He was very nice the whole trip and tried not to get his fat on me too much. And he didn’t smell.
After the flight he handed me a envelope and walked off. I opened the envelope and found a note which read:
“Dear Seatmate,
I have eaten a lot of twinkies in my life and I enjoyed them. I bet you fly a lot and hate getting stuck next to people like me. I enjoyed my flight and I hope you did too. Sorry my fat rubbed on you.
Your Friend,
Fat F**k Fred”
Enclosed was a $50 bill. This made my day, and proved fat people are not all evil.
If you read this Fred thank you, and my band thanks you for drinks at the bar that night.
Tagged as:
portly
All - this is not a story, but a question to all of you kind souls…
This has to do with size. I am 6′1″ and 280lbs. However, I fit in the seat and I prefer the arm rests down. I never need a seat belt extender, but my shoulders are 2 -3″ wider than the seat back of any economy and some first class seats (older planes). I am courteous and usually sit with my arms crossed to try and not intrude into other passenger’s space, at least to the extent physically possible. I prefer aisle seats (obviously) and I fly a lot (almost 1 million miles on one airline and 600K on a different one).
The question - should I be required to purchase a second seat? Am I obese, fat, and disgusting just because I have a wide back and shoulders? I see a lot of posts about people complaining about the portly spilling over the arm rests, but nothing on this subject.
Thanks!
Tagged as:
portly,
seats
A few years back, the airlines had a short stint where they had a big cooler full of brown bag lunches that you had to pick up on the way into the airplane. This was before they cut out in-flight service completely. This story happened at that time.
I was in Phoenix, traveling back home to Atlanta. I boarded, picked up my little brown bag with the dry sandwich and chips in it, and took my window seat. I was unfortunately on the three-seat side of the airplane. As the plane filled up, I was amazed to find that nobody took the middle seat next to me. This was going to be a decent flight, I figured. My lunch sack got stowed, as I always waited until the drink cart came before digging into one.
The doors closed, and the seat next to me remained empty – there appeared to be only a handful of empty seats, and I’d hit the jackpot. Time dragged, they waited and waited, and we were told that technicians were working on some issue with the pilot’s seat. Twenty minutes or so passed.
Then came the sound of the door opening, and down the aisle came every traveller’s worst nightmare – a HUGE man, easily topping 300 pounds. He was holding (kid you not) SIX of the brown-bag lunches. As he squeezed his way down the aisle, the fellow in the aisle seat of my row looked at me, and I at him – we knew our luck had turned. Sure enough, the huge fat guy was in the middle seat. He sort of oozed in, and oozed well over the armrests on either side.
The airplane still didn’t push back – it took another 20 minutes or so. During this time, the guy ate every one of the lunches he’d brought on board. Then, he looked at the one I had stuffed in the seat pocket in front of me and said, “you going to eat that?” Yes, dammit – if I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have got it!
During the flight he complained to the flight attendant three times about being hungry, and kept asking if they had any more sandwiches. I spent the flight huddled against the window, occupying at best two thirds of the seat I’d paid full price for.
Tagged as:
food & beverage,
portly,
seats
