Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links below. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
I’ve written several times before about the ridiculous plus-size “travel influencer,” Jaelynn Chaney. She has petitioned for free seats from taxpayers and even to have hotel hallways widened. Now, she’s complaining again about the mistreatment she allegedly received from a wheelchair pusher at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA).
@jaebaeofficial Wasn’t sure when I’d share this, but staying silent isn’t an option anymore. If you’ve faced something similar, you’re not alone. Discrimination is real, and I don’t want anyBODY else to ever experience something like this. I don’t plan on stopping the fight for change in the travel industry and beyond. EveryBODY deserves respect and dignity, regardless of size, ability, or any other factor. Let’s stand together to ensure equality for all. • • • #BodyEqualityInTravel #TravelForAll #AccessForAll #PlusSize #PlusSizeTravel #FlyingWhileFat #TravelingWhileFat #FlyingWhilePlusSize #PlusSizeTravelPetition
Chaney claims that her recent experience will “shock you.” She was forced to walk down the jet bridge. This left her gasping for breath. Her “lips were white, [her] oxygen levels had dropped, and [she] almost fainted. This was [her] first time flying without oxygen.” She now describes herself as a “plus-size wheelchair user,” which is a new one for her.
Here is the full text from the video:
My ordeal at SeaTac Airport will shock you. This experience I’m about to share with you is yet another example of why employee sensitivity training, a demand outlined in the Plus Size travel petition, is desperately needed.
I’m a plus-size wheelchair user and on a recent flight to the SeaTac airport, I requested wheelchair assistance, as I always do.
When it came time for me to deplane, I saw the employee who would be assisting me with my wheelchair waiting for me in the entry of the jet bridge. As l approached her and she realized she’d be assisting me and not one of the smaller passengers she started to walk away with the wheelchair while making comments about my size.
Even when I told her I really needed the chair and needed her to let me sit down in it she blatantly ignored me and kept walking. I was then forced to walk up one of the longest jet bridges I’ve encountered and she didn’t stop.
By the time she let me reach the wheelchair and sit down my lips were white, my oxygen levels had dropped, and I almost fainted. This was my first time flying without oxygen.
This woman just assumed I could walk and would rather me do that instead of her having to push someone my size up the jet bridge. All the other attendants wheeled their passengers up the jet bridge but my needs were disregarded.
This is discrimination. NoBODY should be treated this way.”
I’m sure that there is more to this story as Chaney clearly loves the attention. I have my doubts that an employee would refuse to assist her just based on her size. If that is the case, then I feel sorry for her. I agree with Matthew at Live and Let’s Fly. He wrote:
This is a woman whose presence on social media is geared toward ‘fat positivity’ and embracing plus sizes. I hope that this incident will push her to more soberingly confront that she cannot travel without oxygen or walk more than few feet without stopping to catch her breath. This is no laughing matter and this is not scorn: her weight and lifestyle are crippling and for anyone who thinks that they can be proud of a body like that, just look at her panting for breath and requiring a portable oxygen tank when she travels.”
I have some sympathy for people that cannot fit in a single seat, but that only goes so far. I’m six foot five inches tall and make sure that I buy seats with enough legroom in premium cabins. I do not expect anyone (the airlines, the taxpayers, etc.) to pay for my seats and the same can be said here. Chaney never reveals how she got to be her current size, but she revels in it and pushes an agenda that encourages others to become massive and then expect special treatment.
Anthony’s Take: Plus-size passengers should be afforded nothing more than every other passenger. Weight loss is not easy and especially when you are morbidly obese. Instead of celebrating body positivity and looking for handouts, I’d recommend some diet and exercise.
(Featured Image Credit: @jaebaeofficial via TikTok.)
User Generated Content Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
5 comments
Can you imagine walking onto a flight and having that middle seat she is next to (and occupying about 30% of)?
Ugh. If you are that huge, buy 2 seats or buy first. Your lack of self-control should not be my problem.
How does she get out of her house to the transportation to the airport? How does she fit into the car? How can she get into the airport and to check-in? How does she expect a plane seat wide enough? Why doesn’t she book business class? Actually I’m going to ignore her ravings from now on – this is ridiculous. She is indeed morbid. She is abnormal size and normal transportation doesn’t fit her, let’s just leave it at that.
I have pushed wheel chairs with normal sized people in them. When they are on carpet or going up an incline they take a lot of effort to push. This person is extremely heavy and likely the person (or woman in this case) could not push her. NONE THE LESS, somehow, this passenger, with some effort, managed to get herself up the jetway and to her wheel chair. SO SHE COULD DO IT!! I am not shaming this woman. I am sure she does not want to be this heavy. I am a large man myself (but not that heavy). But she should think of those trying to assist her.
“I’m sure that there is more to this story as Chaney clearly loves the attention.”
Yet you continue pander to her. 🤷🏼♂️
Why?
What is that, a bag of chips next to her on the seat?