In other parts of this magazine, I’ve been labelled a ‘man mountain’. Due to my 6ft 8” frame. No, I haven’t played basketball in years, the weather is just the same up here as it is at your level and I’m not the freak, I’m the next stage of evolutionary growth. Can we move on?
Well apparently not, as this month’s travel column is all about the mind-bending trials and challenges of jetting off for your holidays, which for many people are at their worst only within the airport itself.
For instance, you don’t want to be that person who sets off the magic radar machine that detects if your flies are open or decides that the minute amount of metal you have in your Levis amounts to a possible terrorist plot, and you get carted off to explain your family history back to William the Conqueror.
Or is that just me?
The actual experience of flying itself doesn’t bother me. Being up in the air contained in nothing but a pressurised tin can with wings potentially made by an old school friend in a Bristol workshop doesn’t fill me with dread, and on long haul flights the food isn’t ever so horrendous that I want to kick open the doors and hurtle back to earth to escape it.
But for someone of my stature, slightly on the taller side of the evolutionary scale, being slotted into a seat that leaves more room for your barely used fold-out tray than actual limbs is intolerable.
And before you say “it’s your fault for being so tall Mike” and joke about cutting off limbs, I shall retort with ‘a fact’. If that’s allowed these days…
Airline seats are designed with the average person in mind, specifically to accommodate someone of 170cm. Or 5ft 5in if you don’t speak metric.
In 2016, seatguru.com reported the average distance between seat rows has declined to 79cm from over 89cm, while the average seat size has shrunk to 43cm from 46cm in the previous two decades.
This is because airlines find that squeezing more human beans into their aforementioned pressurised tin is a lot nicer for their bank balances than giving up room on their planes to people with arms and legs.
Bearing in mind that the average height in the UK in 2012 was measured at 5ft 10in for guys and 5ft 5in for ladies, I can’t really understand the logic in making the seating arrangements smaller as the people are getting taller. Especially when the Dutch are all over 8ft tall these days.
My plea to airlines around the world is therefore fairly simple; I like going to other countries. I enjoy sampling other cultures. I like getting there feeling refreshed and as though I’ve been looked after.
This does not mean I will pay you £2,000 to lie down if I travel to LAX, and I shouldn’t have to pay extra due to my height. People may be able to slim down to fit your seats, but I most certainly will not be shrinking any time soon. So you will learn to respect my “authoritah”! Or at least my call for some leg space.
Also, your other passengers are sick of having my knees breaching their headrests.
Yours Sincerely,
Mike Barham