How To Deal With Passenger Of Size Seat Mate Who Encroaches On Your Space

An OMAAT reader shared an experience he had on a recent flight, and asked for my take. I think this is a topic that’s worth discussing (in a respectful way, of course).

Seat mate can’t fit into seat… what does one do?

An anonymous OMAAT reader recently encountered a frustrating situation on a United flight. Here’s part of the message:

Although I read many of your business/first class reviews, I tend to fly economy. Just wondering what would you do if you are sitting next to an overweight person who is encroaching on your space (i.e the seat handle/divider couldn’t be put down). I paid for an aisle seat and the plane was completely full so I couldn’t move to a different seat. I didn’t want to cause a disturbance as don’t want to be that person mentioned on a blog, but I believe airlines really should enforce their policy of making people purchase two seats. If it matters, this happened on a United flight.

What’s the correct way to handle this situation?

It goes without saying that this is a tricky, nuanced situation. Airlines publish passenger of size policies, but I think another consideration here is that you want to approach this in a way that shows respect for others, and doesn’t make anyone feel too uncomfortable.

United’s passenger of size policy is pretty clearly published, regarding needing to make extra arrangements in situations where the armrest can’t be lowered, or in situations where the passenger encroaches on the space of the person seated next to them. Here’s what would apply in this case, given that (seemingly) no additional arrangements had been made prior to the flight, and this was a full flight:

If an extra seat isn’t available, you’ll need to change your flight to one that has extra seats. If you’re not in your home city, state, or country, and your new flight requires you to stay overnight we can give you meal and hotel vouchers as well.

I totally agree with this traveler that the airline should enforce its policies, and not put other passengers in such an uncomfortable situation, especially if a flight has no extra seats.

The way I view it, there are realistically two best ways to go about handling this. One is just to suck it up and deal with it, which is obviously less than ideal, but also the path of least friction. The other is to just quietly get up and approach a flight attendant, and explain the situation.

Admittedly that’s easier said than done, and it likely will be a bit uncomfortable, even if handled with the most respect possible:

• What would then likely happen is either that the passenger of size would be removed from the plane, or perhaps you’d be given the option of taking a different flight
• There’s no denying that this has the potential to be a little awkward, because if you get up, talk to someone, and then the passenger of size is approached later, it’s clear who was behind that
• So while I have a lot of compassion toward the middle seat passenger in this situation, I also think it’s shameful the airline puts the passenger in the position of having to ask the carrier to enforce its own policy

As an introvert who tries to avoid conflict and doesn’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, I’ve gotta be honest — I’d probably just suck it up and take one for the team. That’s not to say that I think it’s the right solution, though it’s the passive type of person that I am in these situations.

I do think that as long as you handle it in a sensitive way and take it up with a flight attendant or gate agent rather than somehow directly shaming the passenger, you’re going about it as well as you can. And I think it’s worth emphasizing that the one wrong approach you can take here is to directly confront the passenger, or express anger toward them.

Bottom line

It’s always awkward when there’s a situation where one passenger can’t fully fit into their seat, the flight is full, and no prior arrangements have been made. Each airline has a published passenger of size policy. Ideally this would be dealt with prior to passengers getting onto an aircraft, but at that point, you have a limited number of options.

If you don’t want to just deal with it, the best option is to discreetly confront a flight attendant, explain the situation, and ask them to enforce the company’s policy. It’s likely still going to be a little awkward, but it’s a completely fair ask, and it’s not something you should feel bad about, in my opinion.

What do you think the best approach is to take in such a situation?