It's Australian For Suck
Thanks to Kimberly and CoryGlen, I now know that (some) Australians are crazy. Not only are they trying to ban Santa’s “ho, ho, ho” catchphrase (for being frightening and “too close to ‘ho,’ a US slang term for prostitute”) now there’s a proposed fat tax on people flying on airplanes. To be fair, this is being proposed not by the entire nation, but by one guy, Dr. John Tickell.
He said that Australian airlines should impose charges on their overweight clients, as they do for excess baggage, because heavier loads increase fuel costs.
“I fly Sydney to Perth – five hours – and being totally disadvantaged by some huge person next to me literally flopping over into my seat. Why should I pay the same as them?” he asked.
Well, that’s charming.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Cold Hard Cash, Fatism, International
Boohoohoo, Tickell. The guy needs publicity so he gets into the papers with some stupid fat-hate claptrap. Qantas (the main domestic carrier) and JetStar (discount subsidiary of Qantas) have stated previously and in relation to this that they will never have a Southwest style two-seats policy or a “fat tax”, which is sensible of them. I don’t think Virgin Blue (the other main airline) will either.
It strikes me that the people who complain the most about fatties (or anything, really) on planes are the ones who have never had to take public transport at any other time in their lives, and a plane is just a big flying bus. Look, it’s economy class. You pays your money, you takes your chances. It’s well known that the airlines don’t really care about your comfort in economy. If you want guaranteed comfort, fork out for business or first class and stop whining.
Skinny people might have to sit next to a fat person. A fat person might have to sit next to someone with bad body odour. Someone with bad BO might have to sit next to a screaming baby. Etc.
Also, fat people get themselves on the plane. Some minimum-wage baggage handler has to hoist your golf clubs and luggage onto the plane. The weight of your extra luggage is fairly incidental unless you’re on a tiny plane with small fuel tanks. You’re actually paying for the extra time and processing your excess luggage needs. (Not that the baggage handler sees any of it, though they should.)
Hmm…the government should do something about it.
Can you imagine thinking of part of yourself as ‘excess baggage’?
Does he look at a tall person and say, heck about a third of you is just UNNECESSARY?
Being Australian, this really pissed me off. Tickell is an idiot anyway. Have a read of my last blog entry about the fat tax : )
I can’t remember where I saw this pointed out, but it totally deflates the whole “you’re taking up part of my seat” argument: when you buy an airline ticket, you are buying passage on the aircraft. It’s a transportation purchase, not a real estate purchase. The seat does not belong to you just because you’ve paid for passage, nor should you be required to pay for as much surface area as you consume.
Hmm. I have a problem with that argument, and I do think I have a right to the seat space I purchased. I spent five very fucking painful hours last year with some tall person’s seat reclined into my knees, and a big (not particularly fat, just big) guy in the middle seat squashing me into the side of the plane. I was pregnant and under doctor orders to move around as much as possible on the plane, but I couldn’t even move my feet or raise my left arm. It was miserable and I think I should have gotten my money back. It’s not the cross-town bus — which is never that uncomfortable, anyway.
I blame the airlines, not the big people who didn’t have enough space in their own seats. (Well, I do blame the guy reclining; I am not sure why he gets to have more space at the expense of my knees). And I don’t think the argument that you just take the space you get, missy, and suck it up, is very helpful.
Airplane seats are too fucking small, for everybody. My 140-pound, 5’8 husband has trouble on airplanes. My 5’2, 90-pound sister winds up with leg and back cramps on airplanes. Who in the hell do they think is going to fit into those seats?
The not-so-good Doctor has, in his own abrasive way, a particle of point.
It’s my seat. I paid for it. It’s small enough already (I am not a particularly small person in any dimension.) I don’t care if you’re in it because you’re rude and you’re leaning over while you sleep, or because you’re spreading out your laptop and crap, or because you’re just physically too large to fit in it. If you don’t fit, that is *your problem.* Take it up with the airline. I’ll happily sign your petition. But you do not have the right to make it *my* problem.
The distinction between “transport” and “real estate” is a false one. A better analogy is to say that I’ve leased the seat and certain accompanying easements, such as the right to go to and from the restroom, for the duration of the flight. Would it be appropriate to tell a severely overweight person that they’d have to ride in the cargo hold in a pressurized box, since all they were really buying was “passage,” not a seat in the passenger compartment?
As far as the extra expenditure of fuel, etc, that, as has been pointed out, is a red herring. Imposing and enforcing real limits on baggage both carry-on and checked would be a far more practical and effective means of improving fuel economy and “fairly” allocating weight restrictions.
M
Since when do all the seats cost the same, anyway? Is it different down under? In the US you can be sitting between someone who paid half what you paid and someone who paid twice what you paid. It seems to depend on where and when you bought your ticket.
Arrggghhh… the airplane thing again. I flew a few weeks ago and I sat next to a guy who was a really tall guy, but maybe only moderately overweight… yup, the seats were too small for him and he spilled over a bit. It was really annoying… but what’s the guy to do, the seats are really frikken small. I’m short/small and my feet don’t reach the ground in plane seats, so I have to shift and move around all the time to keep my legs from going numb, but there’s no room in the damn seat for even a small person to shift position…
Oh sorry… that got ranty… whoops…
Maybe I misunderstood the point, but how is charging a fat person more for a ticket going to give the fat-phobic person next to them more space? I’m assuming that you will still be sitting in the same seats?
I think La Di Da makes an excellent point. Anyone on a plane can get stuck next to the guy who clears his throat incessantly, or in front of the person who insists upon reclining the seat all the way back, or in front of the whiny kid who kicks your seat back for four hours. If you want to be guaranteed comfort, you need to be prepared to pay extra for business class or first class. Otherwise you take your shot and hope for the best.
HeatherLee makes a great point too — how is charging a tax going to give anyone more room? All that’s going to do is make it more profitable for the airlines to keep their tiny seats, so they can charge extra to all the people who don’t fit. Grrr.
Part of the problem is that the airlines have no motivation to give people more space — people complain about it, but they won’t pay the extra (because most of us can’t afford to; I’m not finger-wagging here) or switch airlines to show that they won’t put up with the terrible arrangement. I think Midwest Express is an example of this. The merger of ME with another carrier got a lot of press in my area, with lots of hand-wringing about losing the “hometown” airline. But when it came right down to it, most locals didn’t fly ME because they are more expensive. One of the reasons they are more expensive is that they allow more room per passenger.
So, while the airlines *should* provide bigger seats and more legroom, the won’t until the marketplace forces their hand in some way.
Oh, and I meant “behind” the person who reclines the seat all the way back.
My question: at what point would this tax kick in? Would they impose pre-flight weigh-ins? Or would they have a “test seat,” (like someone mentioned in the Disneyland post) and if it pinches you just so – you pay more? Sounds like a lot of extra work to me without a lot of payoff. I don’t think the good doctor has thought this through. Methinks its fat-phobia-meets-convenience-mentality.
I agree with the other posters that this seems somehow arbitrary. I never feel like I have a lot of room on a plane, and I never have a problem fitting in the seat. And I’d much rather sit next to a fat person than a screaming baby. Or the annoying military dudes who always seem to sit next to me while drunk (or sit next to me and proceed to get drunk)?
Also to be fair–no one is trying to ban the use of ho-ho-ho. One Santa recruitment firm warned their Santas that it could be misconstrued as misogynist, and each Santa should use their own discretion in using it.
None Given – yeah, there are different priced tickets on each flight. Some people paid discount prices, others paid full price. “Fat tax” is just plain impractical, besides being stupid. And Fat Lot of Good made a reply comment on her post about how the fine print on Australian domestic carriers says you just get “carriage” not A Seat. The seats, it seems, are merely a courtesy. ;)
And yeah…how does a “fat tax” give anyone any more room anyway? Perhaps Dr Tickell thinks it will discourage fatties from flying at all until they lose weight. It’d have to be a pretty damn big tax to discourage me. Maybe next time I fly, I’ll ask if Dr Tickell’s on the same plane and ask if I can sit next to him because, like, I really admire what he’s doing for fat people.
I think you make a good point La Di Da that escaped me in the melee,that it is somewhat impertinent of fat people actually live LIFE. What are we to do instead? Why to stay at home out of sight, what good would this do us? None of course, but it would make the obesity crisis, completely factual and therefore salve the consciences of people that know in their heart of hearts that this is bull.
It’s very important for us to remember that they know that this is crap,in the way that some people are suprised when they find out and yet knew that their partner was playing away, it’s below the surface. The lengths they go to justify to themselves attitudes they know to be wrong, shows they know it’s wrong.
wriggles asked
What are we to do instead?
Why–go away and die already, of this DEADLY! CONDITION! we have.
Yeah, I just need to say that I freaking hate hearing about this. It’s already humiliating enough having the person next to you shift awkwardly because you’re too big, or have them move because they don’t want to sit next to a fat person. You know what all this talk about fat people buying extra space on airplanes and having to pay more, etc, does? It makes it more acceptable for people to be royal assholes about it to you.
I hate it. I don’t fly. I would much rather travel cross country on a train or a bus than fly, even though it’ll take me days on a train or a bus and it only takes me a few hours on a plane.
I’m sick of it, frankly. Yes, I’m overweight- extremely so. And I’ve stopped flying because I’m terrified of the day they will say “You have to buy two seats.” I don’t care- you can go on and on about how you’re paying for your space and whatnot, but frankly, it’s unfair. I should not have to pay exorbitant fees to travel just because I weigh more. I already have to pay more for clothes, for shoes, for pretty much everything as a side effect of my size. I’m already fighting against all this discrimination and it’s just one other thing.
And I’m sick of everyone thinking it’s okay to talk about this. It’s humiliating, you know? Humiliating to hear people saying how I should be paying more for my airline seat because I take up more space. To hear people thinking it’s okay to force that on me.
FatGirl, they talk about us like we’re objects, not people.
La Di Da’s point bears repeating, that any number of things could inconvenience fellow passengers on a plane–a dog under the seat next to you if you’re allergic, a crying baby, a smelly person, an airsick person. But fat is the only thing people feel comfortable lashing out about. They know on some level that life is life and you’re going to be inconvenienced, and it’s just a roll of the dice. But fat has just enough public perception as something you can control, and something that results from gluttony, that people have a need to latch onto it and believe that the fat person next to them is at fault for being bigger. I think it makes them feel better for not being able to control all the other stuff.
I am of the general belief that Disney got it right by sizing up their ride seats. Who cares why people are bigger now–they ARE bigger. So Disney is sizing up to accommodate them. The airlines should do the same. (They have done a great PR job so far of shifting our outrage from where it belongs–on the companies themselves, for trying to maximize their profits by stuffing us in like sardines–onto our fellow passengers). And for anyone who thinks this is “condoning” being overweight and this will lead to the OMG WORSENING OF THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC, let me assure you that if being shamed and inconvenienced and forced to pay more and treated like crap in society could somehow “discourage” fatness, there would be no fat people anymore.
For the benefit of your non-Australian readers, I would just like to point out that Dr John Tickell is a tool.
A while ago, he fronted an Australian TV series called “Celebrity Overhaul”, which was actually quite good. The show was set in a luxurious Thai resort. Dr J. was always going on about how Australians should start every meal with a light Thai-style soup. One evening, two of the participants on the show prepared a gourmet-yet-healthy feast for the others. As a joke, they brought out a “Thai-style soup” which was little more than hot water. The dinner guests were disgusted, while Dr J. kept raving about how great it was, not realising that they were pulling his leg. It was very funny.
Did I mention we don’t take him very seriously?
HEy – Do u think itrs fari that someone pays $150 for a seat. but when they get on the plane they cant sit down cos some overwight person is actually using it. i dont mind squeezing in. but what if you cant squeez in? i actually had to sit on the floor once cos some fat idiot decided he didnt need two seats and just used mine. so i violated safety laws by sitting on the floor and virgin told me that if i could not sit on the seat i would have to leave the plane. in the end the pilot came out and told the hostess that clearly i could not fit in the half space left for me and let me ride with him. what a champ and the best flight i ever had but honestly that fat idiot should have paid for 2 seats. i dont care what anyone thinks – i paid for my seat and i expect my seat!