OK, just so you know a bit of background, my dad is an aircraft safety certification engineer - ie. he makes sure that internal fittings of aircraft are safe and not going to buckle, break, or fly around, in the event of an emergency (which puts huge strain and g-forces on internal fittings - the last thing you want in bad turbulence or if you're dropping like a rock is seats breaking loose and flying around).
Now for some facts:
A passenger airliner will NOT crash due to having someone overweight on board. A Cessna light aircraft or a microlite may run into difficulties, but a Boeing 747 will not. Some thought should be given to balance of the load, but otherwise this is in no way dangerous to the safety of the flight.
Airline seats can withstand pressure of several tons being put on them and will not break just because an overweight person sits on one.
Airlines purposefully make seats for economy class as small as they can get away with - that way you can get more passengers on board, hence more money. We have all heard stories about how lack of leg-room can cause Deep Vein Thrombosis in passengers on long-haul flights, and most of us who have flown will know that even an average size person will be uncomfortable due to lack of leg room. Having seats that small is uncomfortable and dangerous, but airlines have calculated the estimate cost of increasing seat size against the estimate cost of legal action due to death from DVT and decided they'd keep the seats as they are. It is not just large people who are adversely affected by current seat sizing.
Seat sizes on commercial aircraft have shrunk over the years to maximise profit.
They are charging for 2 seats, but in reality people affected by this are only *able* to sit in one, due to the necessity of wearing the seat belt.
I would prefer to see larger seats with more leg room that would make it more comfortable for *all* passengers. But oh no, that would lose the airlines a bit of cash, and we wouldn't want their managing directors to have to downgrade their chauffer driven company car now, would we?
As usual, the blame is put on passengers instead of the money-grabbing airlines - they decide what width their seats will be, and all passengers suffer as a result.
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