"It’s amazing how fast she was suddenly able to retract into her own seat – like, completely." "I just snuggled up to her and put my head on her cuddly shoulder," she says. Halfway through the uncomfortable flight, the cabin turned cold. "She was rude and unapologetic about physically taking up my personal space in my seat," says Lowe, a swimsuit designer from San Diego. She told me the story of a "super-intrusive" seatmate on a recent flight who refused to move. Jen Lowe shared one of the cleverest techniques I've heard, although it's not necessarily one I would endorse. "The airlines have forced me to make this a part of good travel planning." "I have found that coming prepared with something to help share the armrest really makes a difference," he says. It's a partition called Create-A-Space (, $39) that pushes up against your armrest, clearly delineating your personal room. Ken Friedlander was so concerned about passengers who spill into someone else's space that he invented something to fix it.
"He grunted but then mostly complied which made the flight much more pleasant for me." "I asked him, 'Could we please each keep our arms inside our own seats?'"says Caprio, who works for a Canadian coupon website. On Stacy Caprio's last flight, her seatmate took over her armrest and encroached into her personal space. "No matter how much of a squeeze, a positive and nonjudgmental attitude is important."Ī polite request can help, too. "When I'm seated next to a large passenger, I greet them with a smile," she says. Suzanne Dixon, a dietitian from Portland, Oregon, agrees that being nice can make the trip more survivable. That's because of shrinking airline seats and because of bias and routinely awful treatment of larger people in American society."
"Remember, they are likely more uncomfortable than you are. "Have empathy for the larger person," she says.
So beyond the usual advice – change seats, try to persuade a smaller passenger to take your place, beg for an upgrade – what do you do?Ī little kindness would probably take you a long way, says Casey Gardonio-Foat, a small business owner from St. What passengers are doing about oversize airline passengers He also might have asked to trade seats with a smaller passenger, but that wasn't an option either.
But unfortunately, it was a completely full flight. For example, a flight attendant would have tried to re-seat a passenger like Cristol. Other airlines require large travelers to buy two seats.Ĭrewmembers try to fix these onboard confrontations before takeoff. JetBlue offers seat belt extenders for oversize airline passengers on its site but is otherwise silent on its passengers-of-size policy. I checked with JetBlue about his flight, and it offered a $100 voucher to both him and the lineman, which was an interesting solution. Cristol complained to JetBlue, which apologized for the inconvenience.