I am not sure how to feel about this one.

On the one hand, the decision that Southwest Airlines made to give free 2nd or even 3rd seats to “Super Fat” passengers is good for those people and great for the unlucky middle seaters who would have been squeezed by a neighbor whose body encroached into their personal space.

On the other hand, everybody who flies Southwest will be picking up the tab for the otherwise empty seat Southwest couldn’t fill because a passenger with an exceptional appetite decided to fly on their aircraft.

Southwest Airlines is praised for their “customers of size policy” that allows overweight flyers to purchase one seat and get another complimentary. pic.twitter.com/SMTpruL7Zp

— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) December 13, 2023

Southwest’s decision has come in the wake of a social media campaign by influencers of a substantial size who have demanded that airlines accommodate their prodigious backsides. The campaign has been going for a while, with fat influencers pushing hard for airlines to change their policies to a “one person, one fare” policy from a “one seat, one fare” rule.

Seat width has not been decreasing. In fact, on any planes from Airbus, seat width has INCREASED. ⁦garbage reporting ⁦@CNN⁩

‘We’re paying twice for the same experience’: Plus-size travelers hit out at ‘discriminatory’ airline seat policies | CNN https://t.co/5DziuuGmN3

— Cale Ramaker (@CaleRamaker) June 12, 2023

Lest you think I am cruel for calling these passengers “super fat,” I should tell you that I didn’t invent the term, but rather fat activist Jae-lynn Chaney did. For which I commend her, actually, as truth in advertising is a good thing.

A few issues about this change, both in social norms regarding weight and Southwest’s policy in particular, are worth noting.

First, the prejudice against fat people is quite real. There are a few reasons why it exists, but there is no question that being fat is not something that draws approval from people. Wealthier people these days tend to be thinner (reverse from the “fat cat” image of old), and of course, our norms regarding beauty include a bias toward being thin.

Plus-size influencer Jae-lynn Chaney slams ‘discriminatory’ airline seat policies https://t.co/qYZlL4J1ef pic.twitter.com/7eM6fqrEYv

— New York Post (@nypost) June 13, 2023

Prejudices, though, often grow from rational roots. While our unthinking disgust at seeing exceptionally fat people may be operational, it is not irrational. Being fat is unhealthy, and so obese that one overflows an airline seat or prevents walking down an airplane aisle is actually deadly. We react badly to hugely excessive weight because it suggests to us that the person lacks self-control, is unhealthy, and may have other unpleasant characteristics.

Of course, there may be exceptions to that rule, but the prejudice is not based on totally irrational reactions. And, of course, nobody wants to sit next to a morbidly obese person on a long flight because it will be miserable.

As a person of size myself, although far from “super fat,” I would love to live in a world where supermodels flocked to short, bald, and fat men, but I don’t spend a lot of time resenting the inevitable. I notice in myself the same prejudices and have always tended to defer to tall, good-looking men and assume they were in charge. It is almost instinctive and not the product of a system that is trying to oppress me. As with everybody else, I play with the cards I am dealt and have used other tools at my disposal to gain social standing.

Bitching at people is not generally a good tool to accomplish that goal. Although it seems to have worked in this case for the super fat, although at the expense of making a ton of people resentful.

As for the ethics of Southwest’s decision, I am of two minds. Undoubtedly, this will have at least a marginal impact on costs for other passengers, given that they will be paying the freight for those extra seats the obese now have rights to. The marginal increase may be slight, or perhaps not as fat fliers flock to Southwest, but it clearly isn’t merely notional. Fares will be lost, and somebody will have to pick up the tab.

On the other hand, flying is miserable for everybody. Sitting next to a super fat passenger is particularly unpleasant if First Class is off the table. This means that unlucky travelers who would have been seated next to an obese person whose flesh would have overflowed into their personal space will no longer have to deal with that problem. This is no doubt a huge boon to them, and it is frankly unethical for an airline to sell you a seat on a flight and then expect you to share it with another, as sometimes happens when seated next to a particularly obese passenger.

Hence the dilemma.

Most airlines ask people who need more than one seat to squeeze into have asked people to purchase two, which seems the most equitable solution. However, most of the super fat have tried to squeeze into one, to nobody’s happiness. And kicking fat people off airplanes may be a rational policy, but it sure makes you look like an arsehole.

The truth is that there is no great policy to deal with these issues; fat people exist and deserve to be treated with dignity. And while it is true that Southwest’s policy is rewarding people for being unhealthy, the alternative solutions have their own downsides.

No matter what, there will be winners and losers in what amounts to an unfair and unfortunate situation. The world would be better off if nobody got super fat, but we don’t live in that world.

The best we can do is the best we can do.

As for the “fat activists?” I think we can all agree that they are an unpleasant, entitled lot, as most activists are. If this policy change gets them to shut up, then we have hit the bonus round.

Unfortunately, that, too, is not part of the world we live in. They will plague us until the apocalypse comes.