Saturday, June 28, 2008

the fat girl's guide to flying


i've been traveling a lot recently and as a woman of XXL proportions, airplane travel always make me a little nervous. fortunately, i have amazing girlfriends who know what the hell i'm talking about when i anxiously mention the dread of having to squeeze my voluptuous keister into an XL seat for three hours. one particular travel-savvy friend sent me the following advice, wrought from her own extensive traveling experiences:

The Fat Girls Guide to Flying

1) Airline seat sizes vary. Airplanes use a few different kinds of aircrafts. When you shop for flights, it will list the type of aircraft each flight uses. Check here to determine the width of the
seat on that particular aircraft: www.seatguru.com You want the 18" width; it will be much better vs. the 17" width. Whenever possible I pick my flight times based on this.

2) Get in a loyalty program and fly that airline
as much as possible. It is TOTALLY worth it. Get a credit card that gives you miles for that airline. This will let you get better seats (i.e. non middle!), board first, and upgrade to first with your miles.

3) Always aim for a window seat. It allows you to
get into the row first (usually), get situated, and lean away from the middle seat. Because of carts and other traffic coming down the aisle, the aisle seat doesn't leave you with anywhere to lean.

4) Seat belt lengths vary. I tend to fly United
where the seat belt is always roomy in coach, but strangely, not nearly as roomy in business class/first (even though the seat are.)

Here's how to handle a tight seat belt:
immediately recline your seat, slide your ass back, and buckle the seat belt. Then un-recline. In crappier seats you may have to reach back and grab the side of the seat and yank it forward as you depress the button to move the seat back into the upright position. Do the whole recline thing really quickly and no one will notice, they're too busy getting situated themselves. In really small/older planes (i.e. europe), the seat belts are much shorter. Do not go through the drama of asking for an extender. Just bring a jacket with you and put it on your lap. Place the unbuckled seatbelt under the jacket. Put your headphones on and zone out. No one will notice. Flight attendants just want to get the plane off the ground, they are not looking to see if your seat belt is buckled.

12 comments:

K. said...

goodness gracious...i don't even know what 2 say...i am all too familiar with this...tho losing some weight will prolly help us even more than all these tricks, lol.
K.
til-i-reach.com

Alli said...

OMG i just went through this we had to ride on a Dash-8 (one of those tiny azz prop jet things) any bigger and i would not have buckled that seat belt how embarassing. I love Jet blue they have the best seats even in coach. For realz. I am only flying them from now on if II have a choice.

belly said...

k - amen to just losing the damn weight! but in the meantime, these tricks work pretty well for me and my bunyanesque booty.

jet blue, alli? really?? i had no idea... i always passed right over that airline b/c i thought it was kind of low on the totem pole (don't ask where this bias came from - i have no clue - anyways, which airline isn't like a cattle call these days?). but what a GREAT thing to know! i'm totally booking on jetblue the next time i have the option too.

Anonymous said...

It’s a good idea to losing some weight will prolly help us even more than all these tricks .... :)

EMR said...

These are some real cool tricks I must say. But I would say for your benefit that it is also a nice idea to shed some of those extra pounds. :-)

Health Advocate said...

This is very relevant and important and useful informal I hope many more fat girls like me come across this blog and thank you for the sweet tips.

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Losing weight for a better and healthy livind is the best idea in todays hectic life.

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Social Weight Loss said...

Oh that's cool! Is fat girl now knows how to fly? If yes can you tour me up above? Thanks for sharing.

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You'd be amazed how many people are afraid of flying on planes.