Travel etiquette for the horizontally challenged - Thai Air

[Bob]

I came across this section in the Thai Airways online site (travel faq).

Recommendation for Obese Passenger
For your travel comfort,the obese passenger is recommended to travel in Royal First Class or Royal Silk Class where seat is big enough for your accommodation.Should you prefer economy class,however,additional seat should be purchased for your accommodation as well.

Yea Thai Air!!!! (from an airline passenger who is tired of having the beefy arm of a horizontally-challenged behemouth draped across my stomach.....)

The problem is most obese people do not consider themselves "Obese".. They will never voluntarily purchase two economy seats. Southwest Airlines has a simple test.. if you can't lower the seat arms.. you need two seats.

Im average size ( 42 chest - 34 waist) and i find just about enough room for me. How on earth do the bigger folk even fit into one seat!

Im average size ( 42 chest - 34 waist) and i find just about enough room for me. How on earth do the bigger folk even fit into one seat!

I have no idea, but I used to share a seat with my nephew, he is now big enough to go into economy, it gives them that feeling of independence.

A few years ago I was on a Thai airways plane in Economy. Across the aisle there was a German rather young but very obese gentleman. He had managed to get seated in the rather limited space but this caused his abdomen to be even more protruding.. The funny moment was when a tried to lower the table when dinner was to be served. He could not get it below an angle of about 45 degrees, so it was technically impossible to serve him anything except a drink that he could hold. Since the flight was full, using the table of the seat next to him wasnтАЩt an option either. So although he looked very hungry the only thing he could do was watching everybody around him enjoy the dinner.