If you’ve ever been wound up when flying because you’ve gone over your baggage allowance but have not over-eaten and felt annoyance at your fellow more overweight passengers this one’s for you.
An airline is cracking down on overweight passengers on some of its flights.
But it’s not the move of some sadistic executives, it’s happening because they’re planning on bringing in extra health and safety measures. ‘It’s health and safety gone mad!’ I hear you roar.
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And before you fickle lot start assuming this is an April Fool’s Day gag, this was reported by the Bangkok Post a few weeks back.
Thai Airways International has brought in a waist size limit for passengers, and a ban on carrying infants on laps, in business class on two of its Boeing 787-9 aircraft because they are now fitted with seat airbags.
While the extra safety measure has been introduced to meet stricter guidelines on passenger survivability – preventing traveller’s heads from impacting the back of the seat in the case of sudden deceleration – passengers with a waistline over 56 inches (142.24cm) cannot be fastened in.
The measure may well be welcomed by passengers in the UK after a poll last year revealed the British think overweight people should fork out more money for their plane tickets and even sit in a ‘separate section’.
Nearly 80 per cent of British people think overweight passengers should be allocated a seat in a separate area with bigger chairs on a flight.
And a staggering 91 per cent said they believed overweight passengers should be ‘charged a higher fee for those larger seats’, according to new research.
The survey, carried out by comparison site Jetcost.co.uk, questioned the opinions of 2,494 people and revealed some of the UK’s neighbouring countries shared the sentiment, The Telegraph reported.
According to the survey, 72 per cent of airline travellers in France, 61 per cent in Italy and 56 per cent in Spain agreed larger passengers should be made to pay more for their tickets.
Germany disagreed with 68 per cent of passengers saying sections containing larger seats ‘should not be offered on planes’.
The survey also revealed ‘more than half the British public’ said they’d experienced a flight made uncomfortable by other passengers, with around 34 per cent saying they’d not taken any action to address the situation. How very British.
If you are averse to being made uncomfortable by fellow passengers you might want to look away now because a passenger had to be tied up and restrained during one flight after stripping down to his birthday suit to enjoy some adult content.
Clearly not part of airline Malindo Air’s in-flight entertainment package, an unidentified 20-year-old man was caught getting his kit off and masturbating to an X-rated video as horrified and baffled passengers looked on.
The bizarre incident occurred during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where witnesses claim the man in question walked to the plane’s toilets to undress and also urinated on his seat.
Seriously, peeing on the seat, what a monster!
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Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.