Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

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747man
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Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by 747man » January 25, 2020, 1:54 pm

NEW ZEALAND
Thai Airways deny Auckland women business class seats on flight because of weight
25 Jan, 2020 5:41pm 4 minutes to read
Huhana Iripa, 59, right, and daughters Renell Iripa, 28, left, and Tere Iripa, 37, centre, at Bangkok Airport in January 2020. Photo / SuppliedHuhana Iripa, 59, right, and daughters Renell Iripa, 28, left, and Tere Iripa, 37, centre, at Bangkok Airport in January 2020. Photo / Supplied
Herald on Sunday
By: Megan McEachern
An Auckland woman and her two daughters were left traumatised after staff from Thai Airways said they were "too big" to sit in business class.

Huhana Iripa, 59, and her daughters Renell, 28, and Tere, 37, were accosted with measuring tapes ahead of their Bangkok to Auckland flight, with crew stating seatbelts in the high-end section of the aircraft would not reach to fit around them.

The daughters has been in Thailand for weight loss surgery and had each paid $2650 for the flights, including the business-class seats for the way back to ensure greater comfort.

Iripa said the experience was "horrific" and feels she and her family have been discriminated against because of their body shapes, which at the time ranged from a size 22-26.
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"We were utterly humiliated in front of all the other passengers. We went up to business class check-in and the member of staff on the desk looked at us and said 'sorry you can't'.

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"The next thing, there were about five members of staff all around talking in their native language, shaking their heads and looking at us as if we'd committed a crime.

"A staff member then came forward and started saying 'no, you're too big, you're too big'.

"She then pulled out a measuring tape and wrapped it around my daughter Renell, moving her arms outstretched, before trying to do the same to me and Tere.

"At this point, I broke down in tears.

"Everyone was just standing staring at us. The whole thing was disgusting."

The trio were moved to three economy seats.

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Thai Airways have denied Auckland women first-class seats on flight because of their weight. Photo / 123rf
Thai Airways have denied Auckland women first-class seats on flight because of their weight. Photo / 123rf
Social worker Iripa had gone to Thailand to support her two daughters.

She said their original economy seats to Bangkok with Thai Airways had gone smoothly, but their return flight home saw them refused the business-class seats they had paid for.

"We had all been so excited to fly first class and hadn't thought there would be any issues, as we'd never had them on flights before," Iripa said.

"I've never felt discriminated against before because of my size, so this experience left me completely in shock."

After the ordeal, Iripa and her daughters complained and were offered a meeting with two representatives from Thai Airways.

The family asked for a full refund of their business-class seats, but were offered only the difference between the economy and business-class price which amounted to $1250.

The airline apologised and offered $450 in compensation, but Iripa and her daughters believed this wasn't enough and requested the full balance of the tickets as recompense.

"For their rudeness, their disrespect and the trauma of what they put us through, how could they identify that price as compensation?" she said.

After being contacted by the Herald, Flight Centre – the travel agency the family had booked through - offered a full refund of their tickets.

Thai Airways made headlines in 2018 with stories about the airline banning "fat people". It came after they disallowed those with waists bigger than 56 inches to fly in their new Dreamliner 787-900 business-class seats – the aircraft type the Iripa family were travelling on.

The seatbelts have airbags in them, which they say cannot be extended for safety reasons.

Despite this, Iripa was not told at the time of booking with Flight Centre that plus-size passengers would not be accommodated in business class.

Flight Centre general manager product Victoria Courtney said: "I was shocked to hear of Huhana's experience. We have apologised to her directly and refunded her in full.

"We are now reviewing our processes to ensure this doesn't happen again."

Thai Airways International New Zealand spokesman Wayne Cochrane said: "The new 787-900 Dreamliner aircraft used on flights between New Zealand and Thailand is fitted with integrated airbag seatbelts in business class.

"The extension seatbelt normally used to accommodate oversize passengers cannot be fitted to the airbag seatbelts; therefore passengers not able to fit the standard airbag seatbelt cannot be carried in business class.

"As this issue involves passenger safety, I am sure you will understand that we cannot compromise on this."



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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Stantheman » January 25, 2020, 9:25 pm

Better be careful, someone might get upset with your Subject title, maybe it should be "Size Challenged, Don't Book Thai Airways Bussiness Class"

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by 747man » January 25, 2020, 10:11 pm

Stantheman wrote:
January 25, 2020, 9:25 pm
Better be careful, someone might get upset with your Subject title, maybe it should be "Size Challenged, Don't Book Thai Airways Bussiness Class"
Stan, I'm NOT Worried about upsetting Certain People, Because CERTAIN People call me " JUMBO " :lol: :lol:

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by stattointhailand » January 26, 2020, 12:25 am

"The new 787-900 Dreamliner aircraft "

Isnt that a Boeing aircraft ?.............. would have thought they would have been the first to design seats for obese customers

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by GT93 » January 26, 2020, 12:36 am

The passengers sitting next to them in economy class should be the ones getting discounted fares.
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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by timmy » January 26, 2020, 7:05 am

if you call 1 of our " coulored " friends the " N " word or a same sex couple the " P " or " G " words you,d be banned from this web site , or even have the " B I B " after you , but you can take the P out of overweight people and its just a " joke "
shame on you ...

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by choi choi » January 26, 2020, 7:19 am


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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by jackspratt » January 26, 2020, 11:29 am

timmy wrote:
January 26, 2020, 7:05 am
if you call 1 of our " coulored " friends the " N " word or a same sex couple the " P " or " G " words you,d be banned from this web site , or even have the " B I B " after you , but you can take the P out of overweight people and its just a " joke "
shame on you ...
If you use deliberately racist terms on this, or any other website, after a warning you deserve to be banned.

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by stattointhailand » January 26, 2020, 11:49 am


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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by GT93 » January 26, 2020, 1:34 pm

It's not a joke. The health and safety of passengers has to be put ahead of the feelings of very fat passengers or others who spill out of their allotted space.
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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by parrot » January 26, 2020, 3:46 pm


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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by mickojak » January 26, 2020, 4:43 pm

I fly a lot and i,m getting sick of fat people taking part of my seat.
Driving me crazy

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by MusicalBars » January 26, 2020, 5:26 pm

I think the point being missed isnt that the people concerned disagrred with the safety aspect they had not neen advised by the flight center and having worked in the industry I know will be hidden away in 1000s of pages of erreta the sizes allowed but to read them all is impossible so that is why flight center have had to give a full refund however it is the way the passengers were treated by Thai airways staff that they are angry over and for any of us farangs who have got into situation with Thai staff we know they deal with them badly due to cultural and language barriers and I would imagine would have made the travellers feel very uncompfertable

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Sateeb » January 26, 2020, 5:29 pm

Edit: Sorted.

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by stattointhailand » January 26, 2020, 6:51 pm

"The daughters has been in Thailand for weight loss surgery "

If that is an "after" photo, no wonder the clinic involved is staying well away from the story :-& 8-[ :-$

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Drunk Monkey » January 26, 2020, 7:05 pm

The on thread topic aeroplane / large people section of the Harry Enfield video below is at 4 mins 49 seconds ... but its well worth watching the Slobs win the lotto from start to finish ... btw for any non Brits ..its not real life just a rather amusing take on a Brit sub culture refered to years back as slobs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgfB6M1CRr4

ENJOY

DM
Claret n Blue all way thru .. Up the Iron
L2 Season 19/20 Codheads 0 Scunny 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2qrsItFUug
8 minutes is the point of lift off !!!!!!!

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Earnest » January 26, 2020, 8:01 pm

mickojak wrote:
January 26, 2020, 4:43 pm
I fly a lot and i,m getting sick of fat people taking part of my seat.
Driving me crazy
I'm sorry to hear that, Michael, do you fly business or economy?

I think part of the problem may be to do with size of seats and the airline's favoured seat pitching. Would it help if an airline fitted larger seats on an aeroplane so all the fatties could sit together? You'd have to consider the airframe's centre of gravity, of course. If an airline caters for ladies with babys then surely they could suit their cabin to accommodate the Billy Bunters too.

Do you have complaints from other passengers when you fly, Alan?
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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Bonanza » January 26, 2020, 8:18 pm

Part of me sympathises with these three ladies - but part of me understands Thai Airways perspective.

I think that this is essentially a 'cultural' issue. In the 'West' (in this case including the antipodes) our culture, sensitivity and political correctness means that all citizens have to be treated exactly the same - be they 50kg or 150kg. Special seats/toilets/ramps/wheel chairs/breathing apparatus/guide dogs/ toilets have to be provided, and anyone less than 50 yo is used to this scenario. It is sacrosanct, it is people's 'rights' and can not even be discussed much less criticised.

However, in the rest of the world (including Thailand) this is not yet the case, and 'western' people become 'offended' and 'traumatised' when they are not treated as they have been accustomed. They are shocked that someone has called them 'fat'. They are shocked that the airline has not planned all its passenger seats for people of their size. And no doubt there are lawyers ready to jump on the compensation band wagon.

Those of us living in Thailand become used to things being a little different here - it's a pity visitors can't accept that it is NOT the same as the 'west'.

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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Earnest » January 26, 2020, 8:39 pm

I think you have hit the nail on the head, Bonanza. Do you think we 'Westerners' (ANZACs included) are too quick to be 'offended'?
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Re: Fatties Don't Book Thai Airways BUSINESS Class

Post by Kenr6583 » January 26, 2020, 8:54 pm

Bonanza did hit the nail on the head. I've been to many airports in Asia, and Singapore was hands down the best, possibly do to Western influence, but not their arrogance you encounter at US airports. The absolute worst was in Beijing. They yell at you when going through security, slam their hands on the table telling you, "pay first", when you order food, and just have a completely different demeanor overall. (Not much different than TSA here). The cultural barrier, when they speak english, is no different than when we as westerners attempt to speak their language, if it's limited like myself, or get our point across in english so they understand, there is going to be a barrier there and neither side intended to insult each other.

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