- Were you on the flight? Email sabrina.penty@mailonline.co.uk
This is the moment an overweight tourist was dragged out of a plane after he allegedly demanded an emergency aisle seat for his bigger frame.
The unnamed passenger – seen in video wearing an orange Garfield shirt – reportedly complained there was not enough room in his window seat on the Thai Lion Air flight from Bangkok on Wednesday.
He requested to be transferred to the emergency exit seat, which had more leg room, but allegedly threw a tantrum when flight attendants refused to grant his request.
The man’s outburst was said to have delayed the flight by around an hour before police arrived to drag him off the Boeing 737 aircraft.
Footage shows officers yanking the stubborn passenger off his seat. He then lay down and blocked the aisle in protest.
Cops then resorted to carrying the man by his arms and legs to remove him from the aircraft.
Furious passengers are heard screaming at him to ‘get out of the way’ as airport police haul him off the jet.
One British woman is heard calling the man ‘f***ing selfish’, as cops drag him down the aisle floor.
‘When you said apologise for the first thing I said, don’t forget that,’ another woman says.
The flight eventually took off from the Don Mueang International Airport around an hour later.
The person who filmed the video said: ‘At first, I thought we couldn’t take off because the man had fallen ill.
‘It turned out he just thought the economy seat was too crowded and insisted on moving to the emergency exit.
‘The flight attendants had to call the police because he refused to cooperate.’
MailOnline has approached Thai Lion Air for comment.
The incident comes amid recent conversations over whether airlines should adopt weight-based pricing, charging passengers based on their weight to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
While Samoa Air’s 2013 ‘fat tax’ failed to gain traction, Finnair recently conducted a three-month voluntary data collection initiative, gathering passengers’ weight along with their carry-on luggage.
This anonymous data — including age, gender and travel class — will be used to refine aircraft balance and loading calculations from 2025 to 2030.
A separate study of 1,012 U.S. adults examined the public’s reaction to three pricing models: the current system (a standard fare with a luggage limit), a ‘weight threshold’ model (extra charges for passengers over 160 pounds) and a ‘body weight’ model (pricing based on individual weight).
Lighter passengers favored weight-based fees, while heavier passengers preferred the current system — though nearly half of the heavier respondents were open to change.
Support for weight-based pricing was higher among younger travelers, frequent flyers and wealthier individuals.
Meanwhile, American plus-size advocate Jaelynn Chaney has gone the opposite direction and pushed for airline accommodations for larger passengers – even suggesting free extra seats.
But critics on social media have hit back at Chaney and said that because they have to pay when their suitcase is overweight, she should therefore have to shell out more money for extra room on flights.
But she was seemingly offended by this comment and said: ‘So now my body is being compared to luggage? Charging by weight is fat phobic and dehumanising. I’m not a suitcase.
‘Paying extra for luggage is a different issue entirely. Let’s talk about fair, equal treatment for all passengers.’
Others have told Chaney that she should upgrade to first class on planes but she argued the focus should be on ‘fixing the system, not the people’.
The content creator added: ‘First class is a luxury and guess what? First class isn’t big enough for some fat bodies.
‘The cost is way out of reach for most people and upgrading doesn’t solve the fundamental issue of under-sized seats for fat people in economy. Fix the system, not the people.’
The incident on the plane also comes days after an entitled passenger was caught having a drunk meltdown after she was forced to ‘sit next to a f***ing fat lady’ on a cross-country flight.
The 32-year-old repeatedly pulled another female passenger’s hair, spat in her face and kicked her on a Southwest Airlines plane at LaGuardia Airport in New York en route to Kansas City earlier this month.
Several clips also showed the woman screaming at the unidentified passenger over her weight and clothing.
The ‘intoxicated passenger’ who donned long black hair, a red baseball hat and an all-black outfit, appeared to get verbally confrontational with the other woman just moments before things turned physical.
She then gripped the other woman’s hair and screamed: ‘Shut the f*** up, don’t f***ing touch me!’
Several people then stepped in, including two Southwest employees and another passenger, seemingly trying to de-escalate the situation.
A female employee then called another staff member on the phone and repeatedly asked the woman to let go of the other passenger’s hair, but she refused to and flashed a cunning smile.
‘I’m not even touching her hair b****,’ the unhinged passenger replied while she hung onto the woman’s hair and grinned.
A traveler who recorded the intense scene told Daily Mail the woman was so aggressive she even ‘knocked the glasses off the southwest employee.’
‘When she first started saying stuff I called out “why don’t you be nice?” She turned around and called me ugly a few times and that I could never get a boyfriend or have sex. I looked at her and said I’ve been married for almost 20 years lady,’ the passenger recalled.
After asking other staff to notify police of the incident, she shouted: ‘911!’ with her arms held behind her back.
Still holding the woman’s hair, she yelled: ‘Yeah, I’m sorry! I didn’t want to sit next to a f**ing fat lady.’
