I was pretty pleased with the upgrade I managed to secure heading to Barcelona, but it seems that making this archaic process work used up ALL my travel karma. Last Sunday, returning from Barcelona via Munich to Shanghai I experienced the most utterly miserable flight experience of my life. I was disappointed that there wasn’t availability for an upgrade to try out my second shiny United certificate but I was absolutely not prepared for what happened.
I still have Gold Star Alliance status so I boarded early in the process. Much later in the boarding process the passenger who had the neighbouring seat arrived. To say that this man was morbidly obese does not fully explain his size. He took some minutes to squeeze himself into his seat – although in actual fact much of him failed to squeeze into his seat and essentially overflowed over the armrests on both sides. Needless to say he needed a seatbelt extension, although in the event of an incident, even without a belt he would have remained firmly wedged in his seat as his belly was braced against the seat back in front of him. His tray table was unique in having a more unpleasant flight experience than I did. Think I’m exaggerating? Nope. Here’s the picture.
I was of course horrified at the prospect of spending the eleven hour flight without the benefit of the use of a significant proportion of my seat. It is a source of considerable regret that I did not immediately call a member of the cabin crew and insist on the exclusive use of the entirety of the seat I had paid for. I did not, however as a) it was late in the boarding process, the cabin crew looked really busy and I didn’t want to hold up departure, b) given how long it took the gentleman to get into his seat I thought it would take too long for him to stand up to let me talk to the cabin crew and, being British I was uncomfortable about complaining about this man’s excess weight across the top of his gargantuan bulk. So I resolved to find another seat once the plane had reached cruising altitude.
When the plane reached altitude and the fasten seatbelt signs were switched off I duly headed off to speak to them. I spoke to two separate cabin crew members to ask for another seat. Both told me that the flight was fully booked so there was nowhere to move to. Both were somewhat evasive when I explained the problem and were reluctant to help in any way despite the fact that I was very close to tears on hearing this news.
As a result I experienced the most unpleasant flight of my life – with my left arm and shoulder mostly squashed under the monumental vastness of my fellow passenger. It goes without saying that I was unable to sleep for the duration. The incredible bulk next to me had no such problems however, so for many hours I experienced a prolonged and frankly revolting series of full body twitches and shivers as he moved in his sleep. Do I also need to mention that it felt like sitting next to a furnace because of the heat he produced?
It is now several days later and I’m still horrified by the experience. I do think that Lufthansa neglected their duty of care. Not only is it reasonable to expect to use the seat you paid for, but in the event of an incident I would have been effectively trapped in my seat – so the lack of an effective Lufthansa policy in this matter is also a safety issue.
I want to share my feelings with Lufthansa. Lufthansa don’t want to know about opinions. There’s a generic compliment/ complaint email form buried somewhere in the website. I don’t want a generic email – I want to complain to an actual human being- preferably one responsible for customer relations. I know these people exist in Lufthansa, but they are impossible to find (check LinkedIn and see if you can find any…). As a result I’m writing to pretty much anyone I can think of as a sort of personal therapy. I really want to share this experience with them though (not by phone as they can’t then see the photo) so if anyone has any Lufthansa contacts please let me know.
*update 18the March* – I have been in correspondence with Lufthansa for the last week or so. So far they have offered frankly insulting compensation. So far it appears while they are extremely rigorous in policing excess baggage, they are not so strict when it comes to excess body. So they won’t make you share your seat with somebody’s excess bag, however they have no issues with you having to share it with somebody’s excess blubber. The correspondence continues.