A modest proposal for the equitable treatment of the taller passenger
Tall passengers should be afforded the same courtesy as obese ones
By M.R.
THIS blog often applauds the impact that low-cost carriers have on the travelling habits of everyday consumers. Thanks to a canny mixture of operational efficiency and commercial flexibility, these airlines are opening up the world to vacationers like never before. In Europe, once-obscure destinations far off the beaten tracks of travel agencies have blossomed into popular retreats. User-generated content on websites such as TripAdvisor has further empowered travellers, delivering more or less objective destinations guides. With this in mind, and with a few days booked off work, Gulliver recently boarded a Wizz Air flight to Sibiu in central Romania.
In case any representatives from the airline or the Transylvania Tourism Board are tugging on their shirt collars right now: calm yourselves. Gulliver is a great fan of both Wizz Air—which keeps larger competitors Ryanair and EasyJet on their toes—and the charming city of Sibiu, situated near the Southern Carpathian mountain range, one of Europe’s most striking.
For the purposes of this article, though, the praise stops there. As The Economistrecently noted, legroom on commercial flights is becoming a scarce commodity. The sardinification of passenger planes is a side-effect of commercial prudence, so it is no surprise that low-cost carriers are the worst offenders. In any price-sensitive market, businesses lower their costs by sweating their assets. In civil aviation, that means cramming in as many seats as possible. And in the case of Wizz Air specifically, this translates to a less-than-generous seat pitch (the distance between each row) of about 29 inches. Much the same applies to easyJet, which also shoves 180 seats into its Airbus A320s. While these configurations provide bearable space for diminutive members of the travelling public, they are woefully inadequate for Gulliver’s 6’4” frame. Spending three hours wedged into a seat that cannot physically accommodate your legs may not technically qualify as medieval torture, but it’s a close call.
Having moaned about this topic countless times before, I should at this point acknowledge two common rebuttals to my complaint. First, it has been suggested that tall people enjoy many advantages in life, so they should accept occasional discomfort as a reasonable counterbalance. Second, any passenger who wishes to purchase extra legroom can usually do so for a modest fee. In Wizz Air’s case, sitting in a slightly larger emergency-exit row would have cost me £8 ($13) for each flight. In the grand scheme of things, therefore, I acknowledge that no great injustice befell me. I could have simply thrown money at the problem, or I could have consoled myself by daydreaming about the higher salary and greater spousal prospects that my height apparently affords me (benefits which, I assure you, have yet to materialise). But taller passengers should not be cowed by these arguments. One’s stature, like one’s other physical attributes, is no excuse for profiteering or segregation.
So what to do? The industry’s handling of a comparable dilemma points to one solution. In 2012, Gulliver posed the question of how airlines should accommodate large travellers of a different dimension—lateral rather than longitudinal. Obese passengers, too, struggle to fit into their seats (albeit perhaps as a consequence of their own lifestyle habits, rather than their genetic make-up). Thus Air Canada has a policy of giving XL-sized travellers a complimentary second seat. Commercial flights are rarely fully booked, so in practice this simply means shuffling around some passengers. Most international carriers have adopted similar codes—unwritten or otherwise. They recognise that discreet intervention at the check-in desk can defuse an embarrassing situation, which might otherwise snowball into a discrimination lawsuit.
I reckon this civility should be extended to the taller passenger—say, anyone above 6’2”–whose handicap would be mitigated by either a vacant neighbouring seat or an emergency-exit seat. The passenger would merely then enjoy the same proportional seat dimensions as his fellow travellers. No special privilege would be afforded on a comparative scale, therefore no ancillary surcharge need be levied.
The incontrovertible fairness of this approach struck me as I boarded my Wizz Air flight to Sibiu. But, being British, I was wholly unable to vocalise my feelings. Instead, I slung my legs into the aisle and prayed for a cabin crew member to take pity. Periodic, wistful glances at a nearby emergency-exit seat removed any ambiguity from the scene. It was a strategy that had worked handsomely on a recent jaunt to Cape Town with Virgin Atlantic, whose kind staff waived a heftier £40 charge by moving me to the bulkhead. But Wizz Air’s attendants would not be swayed. No mercy was extended, even after my knees inadvertently downed a rambunctious toddler who was terrorising the cabin. (I will maintain that it was inadvertent.) I resolved, in that moment, to pen this modest proposal.
