When I travel with my wife, we book her into a disabled seat and make a note when we check her in that she may need assistance. At the airport, we ask for a wheelchair only if she needs it. That one time we waited was an airport logistics problem at the destination - a breakdown of communications somewhere or simply many folks needed a push. Generally, we have no problems travelling with my wife. It was a bit annoying but nothing compared to the rude folks in this thread.
In the end, SLF like me pay for you folks. I am the J class, last minute booker and extreme frequent flyer which underpins this industry. I've never - and I mean NEVER - had so much abuse from folks who fail so completely to understand from which side of the bread is buttered.
Like it or not, you folks are in a service industry. Service industries live or die on the levels of service offered, and that means folks like me feeling welcome and the experience completely unlike that of visiting, say a dentist. My travel so far this year has totalled well over $150k. None of it went to Southwest, even though they are based at BWI (my home airport) and thus would make many of trips shorter and probably a great deal cheaper. Think about that. I am just one PAX. Imagine if your airline became so customer hostile that no one chose to fly with you. That's Southwest for me. Your livelihood really is in our hands.
With 30% of the population being obese today, with the average male height increasing from around 165 cm to nearer 180 cm, you'd think that seats and interior dimensions would have increased over the years to cope with the general population. Instead, seat pitches have narrowed to stack max capacity, 17" widths have stayed the same since the 1950's - see Fokker F-27's for the same 17" width seats you get on any LCC today.
As to one of the posters above who claims to be a doctor, I sort of hope you don't have any patients as your bedside manner truly sucks. Furthermore, you seem to be unaware of the peer reviewed papers describing metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is an indicator that if you meet the criteria for it, you probably have these other things, too. That diagnosis pointed the way to be checked for diabetes, which found my insulin resistance. I didn't know about that until recently, but knowing about it has allowed me to lose 5.6 kg since starting on a controlled GI diet in just around a month. No other diet - and I've been on many, including Weight Watchers - has helped me lose so much in such a short time. So I pretty much really don't care if you think it's fake or made up syndrome like RLS, as the diagnosis explains why I never lost weight on low fat diets before, why I gain weight more easily than family members eating the exact same food as me, and also helped pin point a potentially deadly issue - diabetes that I didn't know I had. Please don't diagnose folks you have never seen and do not know their medical history. Do not disparage folks like me who are taking their health very seriously, who have been trying without success for nearly 20 years to get my weight under control. I think I have a chance now, and I must give it my best shot.
This thread is a dead end. You're all obviously skinny and perfection in the flesh. One day, you'll be fat. Seriously. If you don't exercise and eat a normal western diet, you'll get fat sooner or later, whether that's an additional few kg or as many as I'm hauling around. I don't see that many rake thin pilots, so I know that you eat as well as I do in hotel rooms around the country. See how you like it when you get plump and people scowl at you for eating a healthy meal in public. See how you like when folks look horrified when you get to your assigned seat. See how you like it when a 50 kg CC bulimic waif tries to measure you in front of all the other PAX as happened to the gentleman on Air France. I'm glad he won, as it means that you can't just humiliate passengers in the same old ways any more. I wait with baited breath to see how the airline industry responds to this, as they wont let this stop them in their quest to make air travel as offensive and hostile as possible.
Have some humility and empathy, and simple human kindness. See it from our eyes - eyes that pay your wages and keep the planes in the air. If you can't, may I suggest call centers. I believe they are looking for the sort of callous disregard of human life that is so obviously on display here.
Andrew