Airlines Making Obese People Buy a Second Seat, At A Discount

NYT article with lots of comments, about how Air France is making obese people by a modestly-discounted second seat. They should have read my proposal from 2005--I've already solved the problem for them.


Here's a question, though-why don't airlines charge a premium for having an empty seat next to you? They charge for everything else, that actually seems like a really obvious revenue opportunity. I think the way it would have to work is that you pay a premium for an adjacent empty seat. If you don't wind up getting that seat, the premium is credited back to you. There would probably have to be some other rules. Like you can't reserve your specific seat in advance, the most you could do is specify aisle or window. That doesn't seem so bad, though. The other complication is that this would tend to require people to stick to their assigned seat, even if there are some open seats on the flight.