On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Bill Dickens wrote: > Didn't Southwest Airlines announce a new price discrimination policy which > would be tantamount to exceptionally obese passengers paying double for > their coach seat? This sheds new meaning to the marketing concept of two > for the price of one. I personally don't see how Rauch's optimal fat tax
Actually, they're making people pay for the number of seats that they will occupy. When Southwest determines that a person won't fit in a single seat, they make the person pay for the next seat too. The obese person pays double, but gets two seats. The alternative is having some poor thin guy stuck sitting beside the obese traveller and thereby subsidizing the obses person's airfare. And, that can now lead to lawsuits: http://www.miami.com/mld/streetmiami/4512548.htm Virgin Atlantic airlines paid passenger Barbara Hewson $20,289 as compensation for being squashed by an obese person on a transatlantic flight. Hewson, who is from Swansea, Wales, suffered a blood clot in her chest, torn leg muscles and acute sciatica. The obese passenger had been able to fit in her seat only by raising the armrest, meaning that her body parts weighed down on Hewson for the entire 11-hour flight in economy class. When Hewson first complained about her ordeal, the airline offered her ''a small basket of goods'' worth about $25. Eric
