Flying in comfort an increasingly weighty matter

It's almost that time of year: flying away for a holiday on crammed planes with a whole lot of passengers who have possibly eaten far too much Christmas pudding - for years and years! Yes, it's the annual squeeze-into-the-seat-that-is-too-small-for-more-and-more-Australians time.

We are no longer bronzed Aussies - quite the contrary. The Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity has revealed that the lean athletic bronzed Aussie is a myth. Studies show 52 per cent of Australian women 67 per cent of Australian men are overweight or obese. The prevalence of obesity has more than doubled in the past 20 years and is now two-and-a-half times higher now than in 1980. And worse - the rate of childhood obesity in Australia is one of the highest amongst developed nations with 25% of Australian children currently overweight or obese.

Problem is that some of the aircraft we fly in today, while updated with the latest technology and engines, were designed from a structural-width perspective back in the 1950s and 1960s, when passengers were far leaner.

And the weight is not only a problem for passengers, it's a problem for airlines.

In 2000 it was estimated by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine that the increasing weight of passengers was costing the US airline industry US$275 million for the additional 300 million gallons of fuel required to lift the extra pounds. Nine years on with the cost of fuel up 100 per cent, that obesity price tag has ballooned to $550 million.

Even in China obesity is soaring, at a greater rate than the US. Although obesity rates in China are still lower than richer countries, they are alarming with 15 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women overweight. In the cities like Beijing where people are wealthier - and thus more likely to fly - that percentage leaps to around 33 per cent.

The numbers are similar across most of the globe and not only are people putting on weight, they are also growing in stature. According to R.W. Howard's "Interrelating Broad Population Trends", the world's population has grown 7cm from 1945 to 2000 because of better nutrition and health.

The World Heath Organization now says that more people - 1.7 billion - are now obese than malnourished and the rate is increasing at an alarming rate. And so are complaints from passengers forced to sit next to obese passengers.

What was once a minor economic and political problem is developing rapidly into a major headache with significant ramifications for PR departments and airline bottom lines, as well as aircraft manufacturers.

Those weight and height gains prompted the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the European Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) to commission a review of seat size and spacing in 1999. The report, conducted by ICE Ergonomics Ltd, found that cramped seating can trap and trip passengers during emergency evacuation and it found that more space was needed for today's overweight passengers.

The study was safety-focused and did not comment on the comfort of passengers but it found that "economy-class passengers are so tightly packed together that they cannot assume a correct brace position for emergency landing."

The CAA has recommended increases in pitch and width but the issue is in limbo since responsibility for the issue was taken over by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in September 2003.

According to a CAA spokesman, the CAA/JAA work will form part of an EASA review of seating standards.

US based Southwest Airlines is the only airline that has a clear policy on its website regarding passengers who are overweight. That policy has been in place since 1980 but only in the last few years has it been enforced after nine out of ten complaint letters were about passengers being seated next to a "customer of size."

Southwest's policy was explained to trade journal Air Transport World thus: "We require a customer to purchase the number of seats he/she occupies. By asking a person to pay upfront for the "product" being used, this guarantees that everyone has a safe and comfortable experience. Plus, we will refund the additional purchase as long as the flight does not oversell. By making arrangements in advance, the customer has allowed us to deplete the inventory with the second seat and have enough seats to comfortably accommodate everyone." The airline adds however that "we end up refunding the majority of the ‘second seat' tickets and most airlines enforce the same policy."

While Southwest is trailblazing the problem - just as it has led the low cost carrier (LCC) revolution - by asking larger passengers to pay for two seats, other airlines are quietly selling space in more subtle ways.

Virgin Blue sells what it calls Blue Zone seats which are first row and exit rows for an additional $50 per sector for what amounts to another 7 inches of legroom. Other airlines, including Qantas, are now following Virgin Blue's lead and selling exit row seats on international flights.

And some passenger argue that it is unfair to charge passengers for excess baggage but not excess weight.

"What about the poor passenger who weighs just 150lbs but has 70lbs of baggage and gets slugged hundreds of dollars for excess baggage but the guy who weighs in at 220lbs with a 30lb bag is fine?" one asked.

And with the population getting heavier at an alarming rate so will the risk of alienating passengers.

However, by doing nothing, airlines run the risk of alienating and even injuring passengers seated next to obese passengers. In 2002, Virgin Atlantic paid out £13,000 ($25,000) to an English passenger who allegedly suffered a blood clot in her chest, torn leg muscles and acute sciatica after sitting next to a grossly overweight passenger from London to Los Angeles.

The airline's gauge of an overweight passenger is the armrest, as it serves as the boundary between seats.

Southwest defends its policy against claims of discrimination towards large customers by stating that "its mission and responsibility per our Contract of Carriage is to provide safe and comfortable air transportation for each and every customer. This policy has been upheld in court and is supported by the US Department of Transportation's stance that the purchase of a single ticket offers the use of a single seat."

As the relentless squeeze gets applied to both airlines and passengers, perhaps the industry should adopt the suggestion made by Dave Grotto, from the American Dietetic Association, who told the told the Chicago Tribune: "Maybe instead of just using those boxes at the gates to limit carry-on bags to certain sizes, the airlines need to have a people-sizer with a sign asking, 'Do you fit into this?'"