Sydney Watson says US airplane jamming between two obese people shows bigger problem

An Australian woman wants airlines to stop tiptoeing around obese passengers and make them pay for an extra seat when the size of their bodies invades the personal space of ‘regular’ travelers.

Sydney Watson, who grew up in Melbourne but has lived in the US since 2019, was caught between an overweight brother and sister who were caught on a recent three-and-a-half-hour American Airlines flight from New York to Dallas.

Ms Watson, 29, created an online storm and made headlines around the world after sending pictures of her predicament to her 300,000 Twitter followers.

American Airlines first dismissed the complaint, but later offered her a $150 voucher for another flight.

Ms Watson, who is spending two weeks in Melbourne to catch up with family, said her photos do not reflect the “absurdity” of the situation.

“I don’t think it’s right to ever put someone of normal size in a situation where their space will be compromised,” she told Daily Mail Australia.

‘For them (a normal sized person) to be touched without their consent and in my case to have to turn in really weird poses to fit the situation.

“I don’t think people really recognize or realize how bad it was because I wasn’t able to get a full picture of how bad it was. But it was absurd.’

Ms Watson said that although it is “hard”, there is a “social contract” that people enter into when they get on shared transport.

That contract is ‘I will do my very best not to invade the space of other passengers, so as not to make other people uncomfortable.”

Ms Watson admits that this was “inevitable” at times.

“People have made the example of tall people, I’m a tall person, I’m over six feet. I realize it can be a challenge for us to fit in seats.’

‘What are they going to do to cut their legs off?

“So they either buy a business class ticket or they sit in the bulkhead. The question becomes why aren’t overweight, morbidly obese people expected to do the same?

“I don’t understand why we make other arrangements for them.”

Mrs. Watson asked the brother, who was sitting on the aisle, if he would trade with her to be next to his sister, but he declined.

“I have to assume it’s because he knew a multi-hour flight with his sister would probably have been quite uncomfortable for them,” she said.

“Having at least part of his body in the aisle was probably preferable to being crushed next to her and next to me.

“Probably anticipated or hoped that a center seat would become vacant so they booked the saying they did.

“The main thing about what happened on the flight is that I had no personal space.”

Ms Watson told Daily Mail Australia that the $150 voucher was not good enough and that the airline should have followed its policy of letting people who are too tall to comfortably fit a seat next to them buy the seat next to them, even if that means waiting for the next flight.

American Airlines’ website states that customers who “don’t have enough room to even sit in their seats and put on their seat belts” are referred to as “sized passengers.”

The website stated that ‘any traveler who needs an extra seat will be given an extra seat when one is available’, but if there are no empty seats on an aircraft ‘that passenger may be required to buy a second seat and wait flight on a new seat’.

Ms Watson also said that Americans deny the problem of weight.

“I think the biggest way to solve this problem is to stop it from normalizing obesity,” she said.

‘In a very small proportion of cases there are people who are overweight for medical reasons because they are taking certain medicines and it is generally out of their control.

“I really feel for those people because they get caught up in these conversations.

“Most people are fat because they make bad lifestyle decisions and pretending they don’t is not good socially, that is not good for society.

“The simple fact is that people need to lose weight.”

Ms Watson said a recent trip to the US Midwestern city of Michigan was an eye opener.

“I couldn’t imagine how many people were sitting on those thick chairs (scooters), she said.

“The vast majority of people that overweight, I don’t think they’re the ones that get on the plane to be honest, but the vast majority of people that overweight probably got there by making the wrong choices.” .’

She thinks it has become a challenge to address the issue of obesity because in many Western countries “people are fatter than thinner.”

A 2008 study found that Australia had more obese adults as a percentage of the population (26 percent) than America (25 percent).

“The body positivity/fat acceptance movements have tried to exploit and take away this shame,” said Ms Watson.

‘That’s why you see so much of this ‘fat and proud’ type of comment from overweight people. Although I personally think that’s a “dealing”.

“I got so many supportive comments from self-proclaimed ‘fat’ people about my situation.

“These people don’t deny the reality that they carry a little more weight than they’d like, and they’re self-conscious enough to see how that might affect another person.”

Ms Watson said obesity is a problem that needs to be addressed and addressed openly.

“We definitely need more truth to talk about this,” she said.

‘Every year more people die from obesity-related problems than from malnutrition.

“It doesn’t help that our society isn’t structured around health — we’re mostly sedentary, our food is full of chemicals and additives, ‘going to the gym’ and ‘eating healthy’ are considered an achievement.”

Ms Watson, who moved to America to make a living from political commentary, which she mainly does on her YouTube channel, said she was accused of posting about the incident in order to get “compensation”.

She said she was initially hesitant to make a video about the incident, but posted one in response to the furore.

“It’s not about being compensated for me,” she said.

“With a flight credit, I’d rather spend that on someone who makes themselves better than having it in my pocket.”

Fortunately, she did not face a similar awkward situation on her flight to Australia.

“I think I would have cried if I was in the same position because my flight from Dallas was about 16 hours,” she said.

“I was actually lucky enough to sit next to two very, very nice Americans. They were thin, they were decent-sized people.’