Move over terrorists, airlines have become public enemy number one.
An Australian man is suing American Airlines for over $100,000 in damages for seating him next to two obese passengers on a 14-hour flight, leaving him with permanent injuries, according to the New York Post.
Michael Anthony Taylor, 67, claims the airline refused to accommodate him “crouching, kneeling, bracing or standing” for most of the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles.
He said he was pinned close to the window, worsening his scoliosis, as well as causing upper and lower back injuries and neck bruising.“I don’t hold any malice towards the people in the seats next to me — they’d paid for a ticket too,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The airline could have put me in a crew seat or moved people around but they did nothing.”
Michael’s kind of being a little bitch, no? Well, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and Michael’s little bitchiness could benefit us all. His lawyer says this could push airlines to make their economy class more comfortable.
“If Michael is successful, this throws open the doors to potentially a large amount of cases against airlines and how they’ve designed their seating and how they seat passengers,” Thomas Janson said. “There will be a huge outcry against the way airlines furnish their cabins, particularly in economy.”
Janson said his client’s action falls under the Montreal Convention, which covers airline passengers for “accidents.”
American Airlines told the Post in a statement: “We just received the lawsuit and we are reviewing the allegations.”
Yo Michael, if you receive any payout in this lawsuit, you owe literally every single person whose ever flown. Your case is no different, we’ve all been sandwiched between two hogs, just because your spine is weaker than ours, doesn’t make our pain less real. Let me know when you get that cash, I got Venmo.
[h/t New York Post.]
