Originally Posted by hindsight2020

Bit of a sidebar but, for context, in 1985 none of the main 4 offered seating narrower than 19 inches, and we were a heck of a lot thinner as a society back then. So the causation is not on fat people entitlement being the genesis of this problem.

Furthermore on volumetrics, even though seat pitch is the one the airlines like to handwave most about, 67% (according to a 1,300 wide survey, see hyperlinked source) list seat width as the main detractor for airline travel. Survey answer which I share and belong to. It's absolutely unjustifiable that the profit margin post-deregulation (given the absolute swarm that is our current flight volume in present times) is argued as soooo thin, that volumetrics arbitrage which makes the 1980s seem humanitarian by comparison, is the only way these so called titans of industry can fly these copy-paste, Streetcar equivalent, winged phalli and stay in business. Complete canard.

Lastly, to turn around about how I should pay a grand USD for the "privilege" of discretionary travel while being crammed into a volume of space where 3 US gen pop males can only have a total of 5 arms in width. To say nothing of being compelled to display equivalent gratitude as would be expected of a natural disaster visa-seeking Salvadorian, clutching to my rosary and trading 3 hours of physical discomfort and proxemics-abrogation for the sake of the rest of my life? Complete dishonest broker of apologetics-balderdash, that predictable shaming from the usual suspects. Where does the slippery slope end? Don't answer that I'm being rhetorical.