[visitwisconsin]

Regarding my complaint with Sherrie Reed in "We Care" customer service this morning, about flight 3004 on Sat. Nov 6th out of Houston to Milwaukee. Referring to a person's fat overflowing over 4 inches into my small 17 inch airline seat, underneath the armrest and a few inches over the armrest. I had only 13 inches to sit on, the woman was approximately 400-500 pounds and should have never been allowed only one seat in this flight with very small airline seats. The seat was already the most hard and uncomfortable airlines seat I've ever sat on in my 35 years of flying, being forced up against the edge of the seat made it even more uncomfortable. My arm and shoulder needed to be into the walk area and I had to squeeze in my shoulders when the cart went through or a person passed by. Two days later my back is still not feeling right. Other people in the flight were also complaining to each other about the uncomfortable seats and their sore backs after the flight.

Continental's policy states:
Customers Requiring Extra Seating
If a customer’s physical size requires, or if a customer requests an extra seat for safety or comfort, the customer must purchase a first class seat or a second coach seat.
We reserve the right to deny boarding to a customer who cannot be safely accommodated due to a seat weight size restriction.

I wasn't protected from this by any Continental employee on the fully booked flight or at the gate. It's even more annoying to think that my husband and I tried to take an earlier flight that Continental had opened and they wouldn't allow us to take the open seats without paying an additional $100.00!

Their own policy states that the customer must purchase a first class seat or a second seat. It was clear to everyone at the gate waiting area and on the plane that this would be a problem. I noticed her as soon as I sat down at the gate and she shouldn't have been allowed only one seat according to their own policy.

Sherrie said I should have asked to change seats, right...who else would want the seat. She said that there would probably be an employee on the flight that would have changed seats. She also stated that it's a delicate situation, that the lady had a right to be there and that if I wasn't happy that I could have left! She said she would send a fifty credit to a future flight. That isn't going to help my back and why would I want to sit on those hard seats again?

I didn't say anything to embarrass the woman and made friendly conversation with her, I felt it was a test of my character and that the employees of Continental should have done something. The gate attendant or flight attendant should not have allowed her to buy just one ticket, I'm sure that they were very aware of the problem.

I'm writing this after being on hold over 25 minutes and restating everything to a "Terell". Then so I wouldn't have to continue using minutes on the cell she was going to call me back on my home line to finish the conversation which she didn't. So now I'm writing this letter to warn others. After a very uncomfortable flight and wasting several hours today, nothing satisfactory was done.