Extremely overweight people will have to start paying more to fly with Air France-KLM from April 1 this year. Passengers who don't fit in a single seat will have to buy an extra ticket.

Mieke van Spanje of the Dutch Obesity Association is outraged.

“It’s often a medical condition that makes it necessary to take a second seat. And we, the union of fat people, think that we should not be more victims than we are already because of our size by being punished with extra charges.”

Safety
Air France-KLM says the measure is needed for safety reasons. A spokeswoman for the airline told Radio Netherlands that overweight passengers could get stuck between the armrests. What’s more, passengers who don’t fit properly in a seat with the armrests down aren’t able to fasten their seatbelt in a single seat. And for fellow passengers, sitting squashed next to someone who spills over into their seat can make for an extremely uncomfortable journey.

The Dutch-French airline’s answer is that passengers who think they need more than one seat can buy a second ticket in advance at 75 percent of the price. And if there are spare seats on the flight, they’ll get their money back. However, if they fail to reserve enough space for themselves and the flight is full, they face having to wait for another less busy flight.

KLM says it's the first airline to introduce the measure in Europe, but in the United States most airlines operate a variation on this policy. United Airlines introduced similar measures last year, claiming it was acting in response to complaints from 700 passengers who said they’d been squashed by overweight neighbours. Low-cost US carrier Southwest Airlines caused a storm of protest when it issued a reminder of its rules obliging larger passengers to pay more, though in fact its policy has been in place for 25 years.

Discrimination
Meanwhile, in 2008 the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled that airlines would have to make room for their larger passengers by providing an extra seat free of charge. The agency found that in the case of air travel, obesity was comparable to a disability, and obese people shouldn’t face discrimination.

Mieke van Spanje would like to see all airlines following a similar policy. But why should airlines foot the bill for their passenger’s unhealthy lifestyle? “The airline says we transport people – well, people come in different sizes, so be prepared to make different seats!” She says that anyway new findings on obesity show that people who are already obese have little choice in the matter.

“Until about ten years ago we thought that if you ate too much, you went on a diet, and then you would be small again, but now we know that is not the case. So all the people who thought that they could get thinner are now stuck in a body that will defend every ounce of fat.”

Wider seats
Ms Van Spanje would like to see all aircraft fitted with one extra-wide seat, created by removing a seat in one row of three. She says obesity is both a disease and a social problem, so it’s only fair that we should all share the cost.

But an Air France-KLM spokeswoman say the airline has no plans to push up its ticket prices to create seats for the obese. IT adds that seats are a standard width in the aviation industry and special wider seats for fat people simply aren't an option.

Is the move by a Dutch airline a sign that US-style obesity is on the increase in the Netherlands? Mieke van Spanje thinks not.

“Of course there are more fat people, it’s a social problem, the last 20 years people grew, also in the Netherlands. But internationally we’re some of the leanest people, so I don’t understand it.”