Too Fat to Fly

Airline Weight Limits

Today’s paper shows that the airlines industry is flirting more and more with charging passengers by weight, which has been a long time coming.

Airlines installed boxes into which carry-ons needed to fit, which passengers bitched about.  I may have missed other restrictions on sizes, but see now that seats have been reduced to a width of 17 inches, which is not going to be fun for the American air traveler.  Scientific study shows more diet commercials on television, and ever-more clever photography on the cover of Oprah magazine, so we’re headed straight up weight-wise as a nation.  

A month ago I sat by an immense woman on a Delta flight who had to force her mass fat-roll-by-fat-roll down into her seat.  The globs she stuffed in her seat flowed my way over and under the arm rest, and as soon as the plane lifted off and she lifted the arm rest, fat flowed my way that seemed to have a life of its own.  I’m six feet tall myself, around 200 pounds, no prize to sit next to, no svelte teen with cleavage, but, MY GOD, this woman was huge.

Here’s where we’re headed:  Passengers will self-load onto a conveyer belt, standing, holding onto straps ala subway cars.  The belt will take you to a door frame like the ones being used by TSA now to check for weapons, and a laser will measure your bulk--height and girth-- which will be imprinted automatically on a stub which you’ll show to the ticket counter people or input in the terminal computer stations.  It’ll be discreet, private, so the Libs won’t holler.  Only you will see your dimensions. 

My plan does not include a weight stamp like you get on a frozen turkey.  This is not a weight loss program, where benefits derive for those who lose weight, although airlines may eventually compete to sell to an ever-lighter, classier passenger base. Based on common-sense analysis, weight can be determined within approximate parameters.  At home, so you won’t be surprised by your ticket price before you head for the airport, you’ll be able to measure yourself using the same formula fishermen use to estimate a fish’s size--length X girth, etc.

A printer will spit out your ticket price.  The computer knows if you’ll fit in a 17 inch seat and if you’re too wide to get down the aisle on the plane, which is also getting narrower as I write this.  Real Lardos will be issued a card with the word, SHUNT on it in bold letters, and someone from the airline will escort them off in an industrial cart to a nearby fast-food restaurant seating area in the main terminal.  

If the laser gives you a pass, but just barely, you’ll be assigned an appropriately sized seat in a special  section, on a first-come-first-served basis. (I’m seeing passengers in the 250 lb. range, true heavy-weights who can squeeze down the aisle, but not the morbidly obese... unless, of course,  they are short women.  The seats will resemble armless hens’ nests with straps.  Think beanbag.)    The airlines will bear the cost of newly proportioned bathrooms with durable, wide seats and turnaround room like a McDonald’s restroom handicapped stall.  Toilet paper will be in an easily-reached open container so fat folks can reach it while they’re doing their business, just like average-size passengers.  Q: what have they done in there all these years if they forgot to gather paper before they let loose? 

I just read that the move to smaller seats by the airlines utilizes seats with less padding, less weight, which reduces fuel costs and allows their unions to charge them more in every direction, particularly in health care costs, which is all the rage right now, along with this new “Passenger Weight Loss Program.”  The basic idea is to cull the fatties and bring down average passenger weight.  Loser airlines will carry fat people.  Profitable airlines will cull ‘em.  No snacks, whatever it takes, they’re on it now.

Americans feel entitled to fly, no matter what their size and how their bulk affects other travelers.  Ticket prices by the pound for heavier people will be a snicker-point for normal-sized travelers who will feel less put-upon, and can wag their heads and nod sagely at the Biguns in the Lardo section of the plane.  “After” people will begin to laugh openly at “Befores” in the bakery section at Walmarts across the land.  It’ll become its own movement.

At Morro Castle, a prison fortress in Havana Harbor, there’s a narrow stone chute down into the harbor into which dead or nearly dead inmates--once they were cleverly tortured-- were sent to the sharks waiting below.  As a child visitor I asked, “What about fat people?  They won’t fit.”  The tour guide’s answer, which made a lasting impression, was, “There were no fat prisoners at Morro Castle.”  

That’s where we’re headed, and my wife’s not happy about it, bless her heart.  We’re on a no-fly diet.