Obese Passenger Had to Pay $150 For Seeping Into Next Seat

What do you do when the person sitting next to you on a plane is a heavier lady or gentleman? Airplane seats are small enough as it is, and it can get pretty uncomfortable if you have to rub against strangers for the whole duration of a flight.

Well, one man seems to have split the social media world in half with his admission that he charged an obese plane passenger $150 for a five-hour flight because the passenger was allegedly “taking up quite a bit” of the man’s seat. The post was published on an r/AmItheA**hole thread on reddit.

“So this month I was flying across the country on a long 5 hour flight, which I had booked and seats selected for. I specifically chose an aisle seat in a row of two, so no middle seat — just the aisle and window,” he begins his post, before going on to say “a very obese man” boarded the plane and was assigned the seat next to him.

“I get up and let him in politely, wanting to at least give him a chance. Well, he sits down and is easily seeping into about 1/3 of my seat. I sit down and am pressed up against him, making me uncomfortable. After a minute, I decided to be upfront and tell him: ‘Sir, I’m sorry but this situation is not working for me, you’re taking up quite a bit of my seat,’” the anonymous passenger claims in the post. The overweight passenger “tried to be narrower,” to no avail and the poster said he alerted a flight attendant about the situation.

“She instantly tells him that he is likely going to need to purchase another seat. She goes to the front and comes back saying that there aren’t any open seats on this flight, so there wasn’t a way to move people so he could have two,” the passenger writes in the post.

He describes the overweight passenger as very polite throughout the whole interaction, but says that he had to do something since he would have to endure a tight seat for 5 hours. “I told the guy, ‘Look, I’ll put up with this if you give me $150 — that’s half the cost of this flight and that would compensate me enough for the circumstances.’” While the man claims that the overweight passenger “instantly agrees, pulls out cash, and pays” him, those on the anonymous forum were not as pleased with the transaction and called the poster an “a******.”

It’s easy to see both sides of the conversation. Yes, he was easily an a****** for charging a man just for being overweight, but on the other side, he deserves to enjoy a seat he paid for. I’m not sure what I would do if I was in the same situation. This might be best resolved by the airline, hopefully before boarding.

What would you do if you found yourself next to a passenger that’s taking up some of your seat?