Economics of flying: Lose the weight

I had to sit next to an obese person on a cross-country flight earlier this year. It sucked. He should have bought two seats.

A lot of hot air has been kicked around (presumably by fat people, who are easily over-exerted) because Kevin Smith got booted from a flight for being too big to fit in his seat. (He had bought two seats but was flying standby and they didn't have two seats available - so he knows he doesn't fit in one seat.) An overweight person over on Salon weighs in with a sympathetic viewpoint. Leaving out the parts about being humiliated for being fat, let's examine the economics a bit more closely.

An overweight person buys a ticket. Roughly speaking, a ticket is a contract that gives you a seat on a plane. You know how big it is. You need to fit in it. If you cannot fit in the seat then you can buy two seats. It's not discrimination if you don't fit in the seat. No one is preventing you from flying. Other seats are available for more money; if you can't afford them that's tough luck. It's like buying a car that you don't like because it's cheap. If you're unhappy, buy a nicer car. If you can't afford a nicer car you need to adjust expectations or you're going to be very unhappy.

Also: It's very important to appreciate how much weight a plane can carry, whether it's passengers, mail, sweet Colombian flake, fuel, whatever. All else being equal, it's cheaper for the airline to fly skinny people than fat people. They would never tell you that, but they would looooove it if every flight was full of olympic gymnasts with only carry-ons, because they would save a shitload of money on gas. In other words: grossly overweight people that pay for only one ticket and then spill into your seat are actually driving the cost of your ticket UP at the same time as they are invading your personal space. So if you see someone get bounced off a plane, I don't think it's humiliating, I think I'm saving some money on a future ticket. (That's why you have to pay for luggage now, because airlines are losing money and luggage is heavy and expensive.)

In summary: I'm hungry.