CMA pans Air Canada, WestJet policy on obese, disabled flyer

[YoungPunk]

I'll start with the I'm a big guy confession. That out of the way I can see both sides of the story. I really love the idea that I can now score a second seat for free but I can tell ya that I'd feel bad about it. Personally I know how big I am. So perhaps I should pay for that 2nd seat (or 1/2 seat depending on the airline). That being said, how the hell do I know if I'm too big or not? I can tell you from experience that on some aircraft I fit just fine. Others, not so much so. On top of that I'm a tall bugger too, so now I'm really screwed! I've been in a seat where I had to put my head on the lady's shoulder next to me because the roof was about 6" to short! While this may be a great way to meet women I don't suggest it as a way of traveling. I understand there is no way to change any of this besides diet and exercise but I really would appreciate it if folks would understand that when the guy (or gal) who's on the bigger side crams himself into the chair next to you he may have fit just fine on the flight connecting to that one.

[angry inch]

Pay by the pound. That's how we deal with freight, right? So why not with the "self loading freight" as well. Even better, make the seat price based on standard weights. If you weigh less, you get a discount based on poundage... if you weigh more, well, bust out your wallet again. Is this not fair?

Let's face it, some people are not fit for travel in aircraft. In an emergency, they are a detriment to themselves, and the other passengers and crew.

The harsh truth.

[GilletteNorth]

Let's face it, some people are not fit for travel in aircraft. In an emergency, they are a detriment to themselves, and the other passengers and crew.

Let's not move the discussion away from passengers trying to get something for nothing to whether they are a safety concern. By your argument, babies, young children, senior citizens and overlarge members of football teams who might block an exit are a danger to everyone else trying to evacuate an aircraft in an emergency.

[angry inch]

Sure thing pal. However you want to add your own spin to it.

Seriously though.. We obviously cannot charge people "by the pound", although I'd like to see the public outcry if we did.. However, I don't think it is the airlines who should have to shoulder the penalty for having to accept grossly obese people who take up more space than is allotted a single passenger. Sure, in cases where there is plenty of room, why not. Charitable cases(stretcher,etc.) would be fine too (at the discretion of the airline).

[Four1oh]

It's the other paying passengers who pay, not the airline. The extra costs associated will be passed on to the customer. Joe Public is who should be pissed about this.

[Flybaby]

My question is what lazy tub of lard, in the first place decided that they were being discriminated against because their huge a$$ could not fit in one seat and they needed to buy a second. They should sue McDonald's for discriminating against them by charging them two or three meals to fill them up, instead of the one that fills the stomach of a normal person. Isn't that the same logic, they need more to get the same job done, but don't want to pay for it.

Edit
Answer

A hearing underway in Calgary could force airlines to consider obese people disabled, requiring them to offer an extra seat at no cost.
The case was launched four years ago by law professor Linda McKay-Panos.
She was charged $970 by Air Canada for an extra seat.

(http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/09/24 ... 10924.html)

[Flybaby]

IS OBESITY A DISABILITY?
From criminal courts, to Canada's top court, the issue of whether obesity qualifies as a disability is raising questions about crime, punishment, as well as human rights
Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, November 21, 2008

Peter Mathisen told his murder trial he couldn't remember exactly what happened between the time he fell on his wife and the time he got off her, when he realized she was no longer moving.

His appeal lawyer is launching an accident defence, citing Mathisen's weight - which was about 380 pounds the night he landed on top of his five-foot-two, 165-pound wife.

Obesity issues are in the courts in Canada and in the U.S, in two cases: one involving Mathisen, convicted of murdering his wife in 2001 when he knelt on her during an argument; the other, a Texas woman, who in medical terms is morbidly obese, charged with first-degree murder in the beating death of her two-year-old nephew.
If obesity becomes listed as a disability in legal standards, movie theatres, restaurants, hospitals, schools and other public buildings would have to take steps to accommodate people disabled by their sheer mass, observers say.

Mayra Rosales claims she accidentally fell on the child. Her lawyer says because of her weight she's physically incapable of having beaten the boy; she has trouble moving her arms. She weighs a reported 800 to 1,000 pounds. Too fat to fit through her front door, Rosales appeared in court last week via video teleconference.

From criminal courts, to Canada's top court, the issue of whether obesity qualifies as a disability is raising questions about crime and punishment, as well as human rights.

The Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for disabled people - including the severely obese - to be entitled to a free extra seat on domestic flights after refusing to consider an appeal by Air Canada and WestJet.

In January, the Canadian Transportation Agency ordered Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet to bring in a one person-, one fare-policy, in which disabled travellers don't have to pay extra if they need a second seat for a travelling companion. Obese people also can quality if they are too large to fit in a single seat.

The court decision comes as the number of severely obese - people whose body mass index is greater than 40 - make up the fastest growing population of obesity.

Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered average.

Doctors who specialize in obesity estimate there are now 1.5 million severely obese people in Canada.

If obesity becomes listed as a disability in legal standards, movie theatres, restaurants, hospitals, schools and other public buildings would have to take steps to accommodate people disabled by their sheer mass, observers say. That means wider turnstiles, wider hallways, bigger chairs; reinforced seats in stadiums and on ferries; public washrooms with wider stalls and toilets.

Even prisons would need be brought to code. Two weeks ago, a morbidly obese convict was released from Quebec prison three months before he was eligible to be set free, after the parole board ruled his prison wasn't adapted to his heavy girth. Michel "Big Mike" Lapointe weighs 430 pounds.

In the Mathisen case, the six-foot-four father of three - who was serving a minimum 10-year sentence - was granted a new trial this month after the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled the jury that convicted him of second-degree murder in 2005 hadn't been allowed to conclude Jane Mathisen's death was accidental. According to court documents, the couple was having marital problems and Jane Mathisen, who was seeing another man, told her husband less than a month before her death that she wanted a divorce.

Mathisen's appeal lawyer, Clayton Ruby, says the accident defence becomes plausible because of Mathisen's weight.

"The case is about accident, not about disability," Ruby says, "but I think that his disability is what makes that plausible.

"I weigh 200 pounds. If a lay down on top of a woman of average build my weight would not be thought to have killed her unless it was deliberate. But if you weigh 385 pounds, then accident becomes viable, it becomes a reasonable possibility as to how the event occurred.

"In that sense, it's obesity and disability related."

Ruby believes the case sets a precedent for people who "have a weight that's sufficiently large that you could accidentally cause death."

But is obesity in and of itself a disability?

And are there circumstances where it could constitute a credible defence in criminal law?

"When an airline said a heavy person had to buy two seats rather than one, that was discrimination on the grounds of disability," says Bernard Dickens, professor emeritus of health law and policy at the University of Toronto's faculty of law.

Whether the weight is due to an organic medical condition, genes, overeating, a food addiction, or "whatever other dissatisfactions there are in life, whichever way you approach it, I think it's fairly clear that obesity itself could be characterized a disability," Dickens says.

But how big does someone have to be in order to be considered disabled?

Dr. David Lau, chair of the diabetes and endocrine research group at the University of Calgary, believes class III obesity, a BMI of 40 and up, should be considered a disability and a disease because the majority of medical problems is associated with that kind of weight.

But Dr. Yoni Freedhoff says there are people who weigh well into the super-obese range who have no health complications. "I've seen people weighing upwards of 400 pounds leading very normal lives," says Freedhoff, of the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa.

"I've also seen people in the same weight category who require walkers or scooters to get around."

"To state a blanket, 'obesity is a disability,' as a criminal sort of defence or for human rights, I don't think it's true. I think it's something that would have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis."

In the U.S., groups are lobbying for laws to prevent discrimination based on weight.

"There's tons of research about it, documenting everything from employment discrimination - wages are lower - to health-care discrimination. People get terrible treatment from doctors. There are surveys of nurses saying they don't want to touch fat people," says Anna Kirkland, author of Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood, and an assistant professor in women's studies and political science at the University of Michigan.

Dickens says there are cases where the obese might be excluded from jobs where their weight could be an issue. For example, firefighters who have to fit through small gaps or stand on insecure footings, whose extra girth would be a risk.

"There still may be justified discrimination on the grounds of that disability," Dickens says.

"Whether it's a criminal defence is much more doubtable."

A pathologist testifying in Mathisen's defence at his murder trial said Jane Mathisen's injuries were consistent with traumatic asphyxia, normally seen in cases where someone is crushed by a large object, such as a car or heavy machinery.

"Certainly, it's plausible and conceivable that a very overweight person can accidentally - as a result of his or her body weight - affect another person in a manner that is totally unanticipated," Lau says.

Dickens says the jury in the Mathisen case was entitled to have been told that Jane Mathisen's death could have been accidental. "Whether he is convicted or acquitted on retrial, the fact the jury should have been told about this is significant."

But, "Does this mean that obese people can have impunity to commit injuries? The answer is no, he says.

"Obese people now know that if they literally throw their weight about, if they use their bulk to put other people to disadvantage, they know that could cause injury. They can't claim they didn't know, anymore," he says.

"They now know that, if in conflicts or even in sexual interactions their bulk poses a risk to another person, they have to exercise reasonable care."


© Canwest News Service 2008

(http://www.canada.com/topics/news/natio ... 5fb8f43d49)

[Morav]

Wire the arm rests down I say, problem solved.

[Flybaby]

In doing more research the Canadian Human Right Commission ruled that Obesity is not a disability.

In light of its findings regarding the facts-based nature of activity limitations and participation restrictions, the Agency ruled that obesity perse is not a disability within the meaning of Part V of the CTA. However, it supplemented its ruling with the observation that "the evidence suggests that there may be individuals in the population of persons who are obese, who have a disability for the purposes of Part V of the CTA which can be attributed to their obesity."334 Accordingly, the Agency indicated that it would continue to examine applications raising such issues on a case-by-case basis. A decision regarding the merits of the specific application against Air Canada, which had given rise to the special hearing, has yet to be issued.

(http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/publications/20 ... e36-en.asp)

[North Shore]

380 pounds the night he landed on top of his five-foot-two, 165-pound wife.

....not exactly a Jenny Craig poster girl, though...

[scrambled_legs]

Ms. McKay-Panos, executive director of the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, said yesterday that she has not travelled on Air Canada since 1997, when she endured a "humiliating" flight in which the airline refused her an extra seat even though "my hips were flowing over the arm rest, my hips were basically on the lap of the person who sat beside me."

Things that make you go hmmmmm...

[Flybaby]

Good thing Wasaya doesn't run any plane with two seats side by side, they could be run out of business if there customers found out about this.

[Invertago]

Wait till this hits flight training. Legally the instructor will have to teach from the rear seats in a 172 otherwise it is discrimination! Oh and you can't charge more in a 172 then a 150 because that is discrimination to those who don't fit in a 150.

beware....beware... as for those tandem aircraft...



True story: I had to cancel a flight with a girl in a 150, the weight and balance worked, but we couldn't close her door because of her hips. Had me thinking I was better off on the ground wishing we where flying then in the air wishing we where on the ground

[Cat Driver]

Had me thinking I was better off on the ground wishing we where flying then in the air wishing we where on the ground

I assume this was a mile high club decision?

[Four1oh]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28777115/
Canadian doctors decry airline ‘tush test’
Carriers comply with disability ruling; critics claim they're passing the buck

Air Canada's medical form includes a diagram of how doctors can calculate the width of a patient's behind.

After fighting it for nearly a year, Canada’s major airlines finally unveiled procedures they claim will comply with the Canadian Transportation’s Agency’s “one-person, one-fare” ruling.

On all domestic flights within Canada, the carriers are required to provide additional seating to disabled travelers who must be accompanied by a personal attendant or to travelers determined by medical professionals to be functionally disabled by obesity.

How airlines determine who needs or gets an extra seat has been a thorny issue. On Jan. 10, Air Canada and WestJet announced they will require disabled or obese passengers seeking a second seat to get a note from a doctor and send it in for review well before their flight date.

But doctors, disability rights groups and travelers of all sizes are calling that requirement everything from “too burdensome” to “ludicrous,” and they give the plan’s chances of working a big fat zero.

What’s wrong? Disability rights groups claim the medical forms require passengers to give too much personal information to the airlines. They suggest a third party — one more experienced with these issues — would be better suited for the job.

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA), meanwhile, is complaining that the form asking doctors to measure a patient’s behind “shows a disregard for the use of scarce medical resources.”

Disappointed doctors
“It would have been good if they met with us first,” said Dr. Briane Sharfstein, a spokesperson for the 68,000-member CMA. Sharfstein said doctors throughout Canada are “disappointed” and “concerned” that the airlines didn’t take the time to consult with the organization before deciding to “offload the decision about whether or not someone can fit into a specific seat on an airplane.”

Sharfstein explained that while Canada’s universal health insurance system provides free health care services to all residents, the reality is that patients often wait months to see their doctor. More than 5 million Canadians don’t even have a family doctor, she said.

“We think the majority of individuals seeking a second seat will be individuals who are simply too large to fit into a single airplane seat,” Sharfstein said. “That determination doesn’t require a visit to the doctor. It requires a tape measure.”

Passing the buck
Before the airlines settled on how they’d comply with the “one-person, one-fare” rule, Robert Jarvis, a law professor who specializes in aviation issues, laid out a series of proposed options. Those options ranged from easy (travelers self-declare as obese and get an extra seat) to hard (travelers take a physical exam from a doctor of the airline’s choosing.) Jarvis says he’s not surprised the airlines chose the “moderate” path.


CLICK FOR RELATED CONTENT
Air Canada's policy for special needs guests: http://www.aircanada.com/en/news/090108.html?src=hp_wn
WestJet's policy for special needs guests: http://c3dsp.westjet.com/guest/travelTi ... ecialneeds

“Clearly, letting travelers decide for themselves that they needed an extra seat would have invited too much abuse. Having the airlines make the decision themselves would have opened the door to all sorts of discrimination lawsuits. So requiring a doctor’s note was the only option really open to the airlines,” Jarvis said.

But Dr. Arya Sharma, an obesity specialist in Canada who also weighed in with some ideas for the airlines, said airlines are passing the buck. “You don’t need to go to medical school to figure out if someone can fit into an airline seat,” Sharma said.

Besides being a burden on doctors, Sharma contends the new system puts an undue burden on travelers. Travelers will have to pay out-of-pocket expenses for a doctor’s visit — and they'll have to wait. “Most people, for a non-acute medical condition, would have to wait weeks or months before they can see a doctor,” Sharma said. “In my clinic right now the waiting time is approximately one year.”

Make a rule, set a standard
For its part, the Canadian Transportation Association (CTA) is also waiting — and watching. While the agency didn’t order the airlines to choose medical certificates as the litmus test for getting an extra seat, the requirement does technically put the airlines in compliance with “one-person, one-fare,” spokesperson Marc Comeau said.

“Things take time to reach their cruising speed and get rolling,” Comeau said. “Our expectation is that the vast majority of these requests will get dealt with by airlines and their customers.”

Representatives from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) aren’t so sure.

NAAFA’s U.S. co-chair Peggy Howell doesn’t understand why CTA didn’t create standards and guidelines for the airlines to follow. “If you’re going to make a rule, why not set a standard? This way allows airlines to create a whole big mess of paperwork to avoid having to give people what they’ve been ordered to provide,” Howell said.

NAAFA’s Canadian co-chair, Jason Docherty, is alarmed and a bit angry: “Most people won’t want to go through all these steps and give the airlines so much information. It seems like a bullying tactic to get people to not even ask for the second seat.”

What’s next?

“It’s still not rocket science,” says Dr. Sharma. “I suggest the airlines go back and try again.”

Perhaps they will. Representatives from both CMA and the disability rights group Easter Seals Canada are drafting letters and making calls asking the airlines to sit down and talk about changes to their “one-person, one-fare” programs.

In the meantime, get out those tape measures.

[yyz monkey]

Dear CMA:

It's one thing to determine whether a persons portly stature will fit into a seat. It is a whole other matter to determine whether that portly stature makes said person functionally disabled.

The former can be performed by a ticket or gate agent. The latter cannot, since they are not medically qualified.

That determination, therefore, rests solely in your realm of expertise.

Don't like it? Tell the CTA to come up with a better decision (ie. If you need to occupy a second seat - for whatever reason - you need to purchase a second fare).

[scrambled_legs]

But doctors, disability rights groups and travelers of all sizes are calling that requirement everything from “too burdensome” to “ludicrous,” and they give the plan’s chances of working a big fat zero.

hahaha... gold

What happens if the Captain qualifies for a free seat?

[Airbrake]

I saw a situation that made me wonder about the rules already.
What happens if a person who is totally immobile is accompanied by a nurse who is obese?
That situation happened on a flight we were on. I do not know if the 1 person 1 seat rule was enacted in this situation, but what if the traveling nurse etc is obese enough to warrant a 2nd seat. Does that mean that the airline is now out 3 seats for the price of 1?
If so? at airlines like WestJet where a portion of the employee compensation is based on profitability, are the employees subsidizing these travelers? Or are the airlines adjusting the fares to cover the certain % of traveler who will fall into this envelope. Which then means everyone as a traveler is subsidizing the fares for these people.

Since we live in a country where the medical system is "free" (Paid for by taxes) is it not reasonable that the government be able to set the standards for food exercise etc. If a person does not want to have the "free" health care then you get to eat/do whatever you so desire?
From my view we are seeing this happening slowly anyways. - Trans Fat being banned, sugary snacks being taken out of schools etc. Insurance rates higher/unavailable for the unhealthy.
Opinions?