Limits in space:

How many times had we said: “oh please, I hope that fat person doesn´t sit next to me”? It´s wrong but at the same time understandable and there is nothing bad about it. In an extra long haul journey in Economy class seated next to an obese person it may be extremely uncomfortable for both even if the extra wide passenger bought an extra seat. Not only it may be rough for the fat and the non fat but also for the ones seated in the next row.

Even so that extra wide person paid an extra fee for an extra seat many times it´s not an exact solution to improve their comfort, what happens to the seat pitch between seat rows? A belly is not only wide but also it´s big in length and I´ve seen many times that the whole robust body can barely fit onto the seat without almost touching with its legs or even tummy the seat in front of him. To give you an idea many obese passengers can´t use their tray table because it would hit their belly and they simply finish using the one they acquired from the extra seat. In other occasions I have seen passengers that can barely walk in comfort in the small aisle of the aircraft even if the airplane is considered to be wide body.

The use of facilities such as bathrooms or sky-bars (a sky-bar may be also considered nowadays by many airlines as the space prepared in the galley for passengers to have a phew drinks and snacks after the first meal service – it´s not necessarily a full scale bar as many airlines currently have), may be totally obsolete and in other cases but not always crew don´t allow that the extra wide customer to use the toilets located in Business class if he is travelling in Economy (Business class bathrooms tend to be bigger in wide body aircrafts). One of the reasons it´s that crew don´t want to bother other passengers while they sleep and as the obese client sometimes can hardly fit into the aisle they just don´t want to trouble the ones that are in their rest. Another cause for it it´s that if they are chilling in the sky-bar they take up so much space that it´s uncomfortable for other passengers to be there so crew generally prefer if the wide body customer just stay in their seats (to clear things out I would like to say that crew don´t kick out an obese passenger from the galley just because he is fat, they just prefer if he would stay in his seats that´s it).

An aircraft is design to fly, to provide the best possible comfort to passengers and crew and also it is design to crash. What do I mean “to crash”? I mean safety. The aircraft is sketched and built up in the best possible safety regulations and designs so in case of an emergency the airplane structure interacts properly with the incident and prevents important damages and injuries to its personnel. But one of the many things that caught my attention is that in the 90 seconds evacuation test of a new aircraft participants tend to be fit and all the safety cards and presentations of almost every airline are done by fit people. Okay, let´s imagine that the obese passenger acquires a Business class or First class ticket but, what about his safety and the safety of others?

Even more, Economy class seats are mainly designed for “normal” size people and here I find a great problem when it comes to the protection offered by the seat (of any class from any airline) in case of impact. When the aircraft has a rough deceleration the backrest of the seat bends automatically forward to protect the passenger from the collision. Obese passengers as they don´t have much space between them and the sit in front of them, the backrest doesn´t bend as it should because the physical proportions of the obese passenger are bigger than the design of the seat and this is a serious concern regarding safety. 

The world needs to adapt to this unfortunate epidemic, that is why we may find diverse structures that tries to content in the best possible care diverse needs: bigger cars, bigger elevators, bigger cinema seats (not in all the places but in some) so on and so on. The causes for this disease are various and it´s not always the common thought of a poor diet or a sedentary way of life. There is a list of various causes that includes: diabetes – stress – hormonal factors such as hypothyroidism or even genetic causes as the “Cushing´s syndrome”.  “The obese suffer from social bias, prejudice and discrimination, on the part not only of the general public but also of health professionals” – World Health Organization, Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic.

Aircraft designers and airlines should also try to provide not only the best possible comfort but also the best possible care to all their passengers and that includes obese people,  isn´t that the message which airlines bombard their clientele nowadays? Comfort and safety for all?

(I don´t own the above picture)