Narrow Airplane Aisles, Discrimination Against Obese Passengers? It Was Unauthorized Use and Patchwork

An American plus-size model's claim that an airline discriminated against 'obese' passengers like herself by making airplane aisles narrower was proven false.

Original video uploaded by Boveri and the video uploaded by the impersonating fake account.
[Photo source=TikTok capture]

On the 17th (local time), a TikTok user named 'Big Curvy Olivia' posted a video complaining that the aisle on a United Airlines plane in the U.S. was narrow and demanded that the aisle be widened to accommodate larger passengers. The video showed a woman with severe obesity struggling to pass through the business class cabin to reach the economy seats.

The woman tried to pass straight through the partition separating the cabins but got stuck because of her hips. She then turned sideways and passed through the business class cabin. It was not easy to navigate the aisle with a bag on her shoulder, but she barely managed to squeeze through.

At the bottom of the video, a caption read, "Honestly, not being able to make wider aisles on planes in 2023 is discrimination." The video went viral on social media, surpassing 1.4 million views and receiving over 12,000 comments.

Later, the U.S. media outlet Daily Mail reported that the video was false. It turned out that the video of a woman named Boveri was stolen by the owner of the 'Big Curvy Olivia' account.

The original video was posted in March, in which Boveri shared some tips for plus-size travelers flying by plane. There was no request to airlines to widen the aisles in that video. She advised viewers like herself (plus-size individuals) to book flights with wheelchair-accessible restrooms.

Daily Mail reported that after the video spread, Boveri suffered from malicious comments, including messages like "Better go to the cargo hold." The media also reported that the 'Big Curvy Olivia' account user had shared more than 24 videos posted by Boveri without permission since April.