He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Seatmate

Re “Weigh and Pay or Stay,” editorial, May 18:

Perhaps tongue in cheek, your editorial advocated charging people by the pound for airplane flights. As a certified “big person” I have no trouble with that, provided I get a bigger seat as part of the deal. At the moment, most tourist seats are a mere 18 inches wide. That’s a tight fit for people like me, who are 24 inches wide -- and, by the way, I’m that wide whether skinny or fat.

Then, of course, there is the issue of legroom. If we pay more, do we get more legroom? How about setting up a system where all accommodations and costs are proportional. We eliminate the various classes and then establish that the more you pay for excess weight or excess size, the more room you get. I could go for that.

Lou Einung

Buellton

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Please extend my chuckling thanks to the writer who penned this editorial. I’ve often thought it would be a million times easier to end all war, cure the common cold and enact comprehensive campaign finance reform than it would ever be to understand the byzantine pricing structures for purchasing airline tickets. Now I can relax and just know that sometimes the darts will hit a lower fare, and sometimes I’ll be risking what is left of my 401(k) to get from here to there.

Sharie Lieberg

Oxnard