Airline removes passenger from plane for being too fat!

Poor Sandy Russell. He was supposed to be flying from London, England to go to Toronto, Canada via Air Transat and see his dying aunt. He is a big man, he admits it. He has a 51 inch waist. He was not allowed to continue on the flight unless he was able to come up with the extra 928 pounds (appx $1379.90 as of this writing)  to be able to fly as he was going to have to book a second seat due to his girth. 

Mr. Russell is big enough that they were unable to put down the armrest because of his size. 

The flight attendant took him off the plane, and explained this to him. He explained that he was handicapped, and that he did not have the monies needed to be able to get the second ticket. 

Sadly, Sandy's aunt passed 2 days later of colon cancer, and he was unable to be able to say his final farewells.

I do feel sorry for this man, and I do feel sorry for the airlines, and I do feel sorry for passengers who have to involuntarily be literally pressed into sharing a seat with people of a larger size. 

I flew once from Dallas, Texas to London with some friends. As we were sitting in our seats, waiting for the plane to take off, a flight attendant came to our group and asked if I would be willing to switch with another passenger since I was "so little" because the airline had placed two large passengers together, and they were not comfortable. I declined, because I wanted to be seated with my friends. The flight attendant was agitated, and she told me that if I did not relent, she was going to have to ask one of these people to dis-board the plane. I expressed sympathy, but said that I did not want to move from my friends, that we had planned this trip for over a year, and we lived across the country from one another. She left, and came back a few moments later, offering me miles on my account and an upgrade on the way home to business class. This man had to be someone important to not be asked to leave the plane. I agreed, went and swapped seats. It was the most uncomfortable flight. The man was so large that he kept bumping into me. He was extremely courteous, and would tell me that he was sorry every time that he did it. I said "Don't worry about it. You are like a big teddy bear." 

We both laughed about the predicament. He told me that he was on a diet, and had lost over 150 pounds, but that he was still too big to be flying. I asked him about the news, which had recently featured a man who was asked to buy another ticket because of his size. He told me that when he was bigger, he would always buy two seats to be comfortable. There are many reasons why people are big. I am not even going to go into all of that. Being bigger is just how some people are. But, should those who are bigger in size be allowed to impose themselves literally onto those who are smaller? It is not being mean, as a smaller person to want to have the entire seat that you paid for to yourself. It is a matter of being able to be secure and safe in your space. 

It is not a matter of being mean when you consider the possibilities of an emergency on a plane, and wonder if the size of the person next to you would prevent you from getting safely off the plane. 

Although the flight attendant handled the matter by removing him off the plane, I am sure that there was no way to do it in a manner that would have allowed Mr. Russell to maintain his dignity,simply because of the reason that he was removed from the plane. 

Tragically, as I mentioned before, Mr. Russell was not able to say his final farewell to his aunt, and that is sad. But, in an industry where competition is fierce, customers have access to the internet, and everyman has their own blog (like this one), I am not sure that the airline could have done anything to not generate some negative press. Just so you know, 32 stone is 448 pounds. 

I wish that there were a solution to this one, but I do not know what it is.