Today in the Sky reports that Air France is being sued by a passenger who says he was “shocked” and “humiliated” after the airline told him he was too big to fit in one seat and would have to purchase another. Many airlines have policies for overweight passengers that require the purchase of such a seat.
The passenger, French screenwriter Jean-Jacques Jauffret, claims that he was ordered to buy such a seat after measuring his waist in public in 2005 in New Delhi in India. He is suing Air France for more than $10,000 in damages and to reimburse him nearly $700 for the second seat he purchased.
Air France lawyer is quoted as commenting in court proceedings…”Let’s be objective. This man is fat. He barely fits in the courtroom chair. How could he sit on an airplane?” It is inspiring to know that Air France and its legal representation chooses to be so hostile in the face of a man claiming the way he was treated was damaging to him.
Southwest Airlines was under fire a few years ago over their policies on this. Airlines maintain policies about overweight passengers, but those policies are not as clear as they could be. Southwest, for example, defines a ‘customer of size’ as one who can fit comfortably into a seat with the armrest down, and has offered to take passengers onto the plane if they challenge the ruling.
That is the key. Measuring a person’s waist in public and subjecting them to public scrutiny is the problem. Air France has all the right in the world to tell a passenger that he occupies more space than they allow, but there is a right and a wrong way to approach the issue. The right way is to approach the passenger with awareness it is a sensitive issue. If your policy is based on the size of the seat, then if the passenger complains, you can allow them to sit in a seat as part of the judgement. If the maximum weight and/or waist size is defined, it should be defined clearly in writing to all passengers in advance, and if measurements are required, it should be offered to do such things in private.
Passengers have the right to not feel unduly embarrassed. Some may say that if they don’t want to be embarrassed about their weight, they can lose it…but it is hardly that simple. Other passengers have the right to not be unfairly encroached upon as well. One commenter at Today in the Sky suggested a sample airline seat in the terminal, like the luggage boxes, allowing people to see if they fit into the seats…
The problem is this…passengers like this one fly frequently, and then suddenly are told they will need to buy another seat. Policy enforcement should be consistent…and in the interests of smoothing things over with the increasingly larger public and increasingly smaller seats, if there are empty seats on the plane, the airline should offer a refund on the extra seat the passenger purchased.
To reiterate…write your policy down…make it easily findable on your website(we spent five minutes looking on the Air France USA site, and couldn’t find it), and train your employees to be firm but considerate. This isn’t an issue of Political Correctness…but courtesy. And perhaps, airlines might consider not cramming their passengers into the smallest space possible.