Whenever you think regulation has gone mad in New Zealand, it is reassuring Canada is usually worse.
The Canadian Supreme Court has rejected an appeal against a ruling that airlines must provide extra seats free of charge to morbidly obese flyers.
Canadian airlines should be able to charge what they want. Hell if an airline wanted to charge passengers based on their weight, I would support that. You pay for luggage over a certain weight, so why not people?
But this isn’t even that. This is telling airlines that if a passenger is so obese that they can’t possibly fit in one seat, then they must get that second seat for free.
This is what you get when you take a good principle such as non discrimination, and apply it to extreme ends.
Interestingly in NZ, Air NZ has started charging for empty seats. How? If there are empty seats on a flight, then you can ask to be next to one for $75 on a flight to the US. Now that’s a smart idea. In Canada no doubt it would be illegal.