Fat story made thin: Italian man angry with Emirates airlines because they’re not doing anything to dissuade his dissatisfaction with having to have sat next to a morbidly obese man on a nine-hour flight
I’m aware that this story is one that of an insufferable, apparently entitled individual, trying to cash in on a no-win situation from Emirates, but I’m also not a perfect person either. I’m on the side of the angry Italian.
I fly a lot, as my six readers very well know. I’ve enjoyed the luxury of the occasional surprise upgrade when I played the standby game, but way more often than naught, I’ve suffered the indignity of having to sit next to undesirable people. And I wish it were the people with babies, or the blabber mouths, or the people that often come to mind when people think of undesirable seat neighbors. No, I’m talking about the people who don’t know what a shower is, or had been living at the airport for days, or sometimes both. People who try to dominate the armrests or any and as much space as they can, because they’re just that selfish or greedy.
And then there’s the fat people.
If I’m in the shoes of the Italian guy, I’m feeling the exact same way – pissed. Nobody likes sitting next to the fat guy on the airplane who is so large that they basically ooze over and into adjacent seats. It feels like a violation of personal space, it’s uncomfortable and it’s just downright infuriating. A lot of people don’t like flying in the first place, but this hatred is compounded when you have to sit next to The Blob who manages to maintain physical contact no matter how hard you shift, adjust and try to avoid it.
I’ve had my share of sitting next to the fat guy that somehow makes me look like a recovering anorexic. I hate it every time, and it’s not difficult to assume that everyone it happens to hates it too. I’ve missed a flight before on account of the aircraft reaching its weight limit despite having numerous open seats, which basically is saying that there’s a lot of luggage aboard the plane, but more importantly, way too many people of substantial weight numbers.
I’ve even had a flight tarnished, because the aircraft was full of fat people, and they were all wedged near each other to a point where they couldn’t stand each other, and the flight devolved into a trip where fat people would mill about the aisles, and worse off, camp in the service cabin area, hovering above me, unfortunate enough to have the aisle seat in the last row of the plane. I’m just trying to watch a movie on my netbook, but instead I’ve got a fucking human eclipse hovering over my head trying to get a free show.
The bottom line is that I understand that fat people need to fly the friendly skies too, but sometimes it’s their presence that makes them not quite so friendly, when their girth begins to inconvenience others. Airlines need to get on the ball and universally nail down some uniform policies when it comes to accommodating the physically space consuming. Whether it’s clear language about purchasing multiple seats, or simply constructing bigger planes or bigger seats that have a slightly higher cost; anything that can prevent stories like this from emerging, and giving me no reason to brog mean-spirited things like such.
As for the Italian guy, he’s probably screwed. Emirates is great about addressing and responding to people who blow them on the Internet, or rave about their service, but when it comes to absolutely anything else, they’re as quiet as a Whole Foods when a black guy walks in. I don’t think it matters how much the Italian guy complains, there’s no way Emirates is going to acknowledge this incident, nor is the guy actually going to get any sort of compensation.
At least the now-defunct AirTran gave me $50 voucher because I complained about how I didn’t like The Natural Disasters hovering over me on my flight. But I’d rather have had just a tolerable flight instead.
