Yesterday Canada took another step towards admitting that fat people deserve equal treatment! Federal courts upheld the "one person, one fare" law aimed at ensuring that all people get equal service on airlines regardless of their size. This has been the law on busses, trains and ferries for a number of years already, but has only recently been applied to Canadian airliners including Air Canada, West Jet and Jazz.
I can not even begin to tell you how frightened I was that I was going to be totally embarrassed when I went on vacation last December. Our travel agent insisted on buying me 2 seats "just in case". It was humiliating.
Turned out I only needed one anyway, but that is not the point. I have not been on a plane in years because I was afraid that I would be humiliated by a stewardess over my size.
Now, as a Canadian, I need no longer worry about this problem.
Granted there are still a number of problems with the law in that it leaves the airlines to decide who is "entitled" to that extra seat free of charge and "needs it" and those who are "merely uncomfortable" in a single seat and should be "encouraged" to pay for a second seat, but it is certainly a lot better than the situation south of the border where anyone not stick thin flies in fear of being harassed by fellow passengers and staff.
Link to the official press release.
No comments:
Post a Comment