I took a Thursday morning flight on American Airlines. I sat between two friends, which was fine, but we are all 6’3″ and a combined 650 pounds. Now in the past this would not be a problem, however, with airlines cutting corners it was not a fun time. The flight back was worse because I was stuck between one friend and an extremely large man–bigger than my other friend. American Airlines charged a pretty penny even though we bought the coach tickets six months in advance. I had to scrunch into a ball not to be knocked around the entire 4-hour flight. Now this flight problem points to the fact that airlines like American are going to go out of business soon because they cannot charge higher prices with equivalent or lesser accomadations.
A travel complaint happens to everyone, and when you are done with your flight what should you do?
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on what airlines do when you complain.
There was an interesting article in the WSJ about airline complaints and how most people find the responses they receive (if any) to be less than expected.
I’m not sure there is much the airline can do in this instance. As a big guy myself (6’0″, 250 lbs), I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being seated in a middle seat between two guys larger than me. It was even worse because neither guy would give up the armrest, so I spent the entire flight with my arms squished up in front of me. However, the airline is only selling you passage and doesn’t make any guarantee that you will be comfortable.
My question would be how did you end up with a middle seat if you booked six months in advance? At that point there should have been an aisle or window seat available you could have reserved. Maybe you wanted to be next to your friends, but that isn’t worth being in a middle to me. When my wife and I travel, we have an understanding that we sit in the same row, she gets window, I get aisle, and some other poor bastard gets the middle seat in between.