Fat Shaming Alive & Well on EasyJet

Forgive me people for it is a long time since I have blogged – life been a little hectic post knee replacement surgery number two, but I am back and still have lots to say!

So my hubby and I just had lovely break in sunny Spain and as always we pay for extra leg room   on the plane so I can stretch my legs and feel a little more comfortable in flight. This time we found ourselves on the fire exit row and the outbound flight went without a hitch, however, on the way home I experienced my first ever fat shaming incident.

As the last flight out of Malaga to Liverpool the plane was full to capacity and a very loud, rude and pretentious female stewardess decided I was a fire risk as I was using a seat belt extension.  Discretion was a word and/or concept she seemed unfamiliar with so she decided to inform most of the passengers that I simply could not sit on this row and started to panic!  When I asked her to explain to me why I was a hazard she said that sitting in this row I needed to be able to open the fire door and may be called upon to assist other passengers?  Seriously?  How had she made the decision that I could NOT do this???

As I looked along this row I was not the only person using a seat belt extension  and not only that,  if her reasoning was correct one person was a man in his eighties, walking with a stick who could not bend his right leg and the women sat next to me admitted she needed extra leg room as she had lumbar problems and a lack of mobility!

Brilliant, my only visible, so called disability was that I was fat!

Clearly people who opt to pay more for extra leg room, do this because they are big, tall  or incapacitated in some way and benefit from more leg room  so how stupid to then sit them on this row and then proceed to humiliate them if they cannot fit a standard seat belt?  For the record, I can fasten the standard seat belt, I wear an extension for comfort and so could the other ‘fatties’ on the row so once we did this the panic was over and we were left alone. It would seem even though I did not lose 8 stone in a minute I was no longer a risk.

Forgive me but would it not be better to only sit passengers in these seats who fit this so called, hidden criteria or make the seat belts a few inches longer? I had no control over selecting this row, I simply paid for extra leg room.  As Lee Evans says ‘ I don’t want to part of the bloody crew, I am just going on my holidays!’

Trust me if that fire door needed to be opened I  would be on it and out of everyone’s way in a nano second, fat or not! And for the record fat is not a disability.

Thanks for the moment EasyJet – it was emotional!  But can I suggest some of your staff may benefit from some sensitivity training.