Airline bans overweight passengers from business class
Thai Airways has installed seatbelt airbags on business class cabins on its new Dreamliner jets. There’s only one problem – passengers with a waistline of more than 142.24cm (or 56 inches) simply won’t fit.
According to vice president of Thai Airways safety, security and standards department Flight Lieutenant Prathana Pattanasiri, passengers carrying a little extra weight will not be able to fasten the new seatbelt airbags in a way that meets safety standards.
The new airbags will also make flying difficult for parents of young children if they need to travel with kids sitting on their laps.
The seatbelts can’t be extended because of the airbag mechanism, the Bangkok Post reports.
Thai Airways has fitted the new seatbelt airbags on business class seats on its Dreamliner 787-9 fleet. It has now imposed a waist size limit on passengers and banned passengers carrying infants on their laps.
This isn’t the first airline to take aim at overweight passengers, with European airline Finnair announcing in November its plan to weigh passengers before every flight.
A survey of British passengers found that 39 per cent of people believe airlines should weigh people before flights.