There’s nothing like a budget airline seat to make you
feel that you’re bigger than you thought as you yank the
safety belt around you. We’re all pretty small in our family, and yet, flying
back from Faro last week, I noticed how snuggly we all fitted in to our Easyjet
seats. I wondered how a huge passenger, three times the width of my size 6
daughters, had fared. Did he have to buy two or three seats? Or did he just
bulge over onto his neighbours?
I love obesity researcher Zoe Harcombe’s
take on just this issue in her newsletter today. Zoe, who is 5' 2" and
weighs 50kg, got her husband to measure her at her widest point, with her arms
by her side - and found she was 18", the width of a typical airseat. Now
Airbus has a plan to make the aisle seat 20" wide, and the middle and
window seats 17" each... But, as Zoe points out, only a minority of people
who are smaller and slimmer than her (let's face it, children mostly) will fit
into these narrower seats....
Zoe also mentions that a Samoan airline is now
planning to weigh passengers and their luggage for a total weight per
passenger. If this takes off with other airlines it could be fab news for those
of us who are small enough to struggle to keep our luggage under 20kg.
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