Excuse Me, Is This Seat Taken? - NYTimes.com

Excuse Me, Is This Seat Taken? - NYTimes.com: "Some airlines have responded by tweaking their policies to encourage large passengers to buy more space. On Feb. 1 Air France, which for the last five years has offered “passengers with a high body mass” the option of buying a second seat in economy at a 25 percent discount, said it would reimburse the cost of the second seat if the plane wasn’t full. Last year, United set a formal policy to get large passengers to buy an upgrade or extra seat after it received 700 complaints in 2008 from customers whose seatmates did not fit into a single seat. Since then, said Robin Urbanski, a United spokeswoman, that number has dropped to about 100."