The weight and size of people traveling by plane has been a decades-long source of controversy for airlines.
The jet era started off by weighing flight attendants to maintain a "glamorous image" and, more than 70 years later, is facing profit-related incentives to shrink seats and squeeze more passengers into one plane at a time when travelers across the world are getting larger.
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The exact policies for travelers of larger size is a mixed bag from airline to airline. While Southwest Airlines (LUV) has a "customer of size" policy that refunds any traveler who cannot fit in a single seat the price of a second one, other airlines offer refunds only if there are unsold seats on the flight or not at all.
'Why Should We Have to Pay Extra For the Same Experience?' Plus-Size Influencer Asks
United Airlines (UAL) requires travelers who cannot "properly attach, buckle and wear the seat belt, with one extension if necessary" to buy a second one for each leg of their journey.
"We will not board you if you decline to buy a ticket for an additional seat or an upgrade for each leg of your itinerary when required," the airline says on its website.
As first reported by CNN Travel, plus-size travel influencer Jae'Lynn Chaney recently addressed the issue with a petition to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In it, Chaney calls for the government agency to mandate airlines to have a "comprehensive customer-of-size policy" and create "clear and inclusive guidelines on accommodating customers of size."
"For plus-size individuals, [air travel] often becomes an unfair and uncomfortable experience," Chaney wrote in an Instagram post for her nearly 100,000 followers. "Why should we have to pay extra for the same travel experience as others? This question lies at the heart of an ongoing injustice in the aviation industry."
Chaney draws comparison to Canada's one person, one fare policy that prevents the country's airlines from charging passengers who need more space a higher fare.
As with anything having to do with plus-size issues, the campaign received a share of online negative comments from people feeling that this type of price system would be unfair to those who do not require extra space.
As Passenger Size Increases, Airlines Will Need to Adapt
But with more than 30% of Americans currently overweight or obese (and more than half of the global expected to be so by 2035), how airlines approach both seat size and weight aboard the aircraft continues to be a pressing topic for the industry.
To better estimate the weight of its passengers aboard, Air New Zealand (ANZFF) recently started asking passengers to weigh themselves before checking in for an international flight out of Auckland.
This request is entirely optional and not shared with either the gate agent or the passenger but rather meant to feed information into an anonymized data pool that helps the airline better estimate how much weight it will carry aboard.
While some airlines have been responding to customer requests for more comfortable travel, others also go the other way. In 2012, local Polynesian airline Samoa Air called airfare charged in proportion to one's weight the "fairest way of travelling."
The airline tried charging passengers by multiplying each kilogram of their body weight by $2.40 in the local Samoan currency but went defunct just a year after launching.
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