Russian volleyball player Alexander Kimerov was born November 9, 1996. This 20-year old loves to play video games and his favorite novel is War and Peace. He started playing volleyball in 2006 and was invited to join the national team of Russia in 2010. Oh, and he is one of volleyball’s tallest players standing at 7-feet.
But problems come in all shapes and… Tallness?
Earlier this year, Kimerov was forcibly removed from his flight to Moscow because he was too tall. Yes – too tall! Let the over weight and the sick on board but the tall people are a threat to passenger safety, apparently. If you’ve ever flown coach you know that standard flights have little legroom even for less tall travelers. So naturally Kimerov’s legs spilled out into the aisle.
This prompted flight attendants to bring on armed forces to take Kimerov off the plane while passengers watched. A video one passenger took of the incident is all in Russian but it is clear that Kimerov was not in favor of the police removing him from the plane.
“Just pay for extra legroom” or “Buy two seats!”
Although these seem like helpful tidbits of advice — it can be very expensive to pay for additional room let alone another seat. In 2015, Bob Keenan addressed this issue with a Canadian airline. Keenan, who is 6’4”, doesn’t want special treatment but also doesn’t want to sell one of his legs just to have some comfort.
Another passenger, Brooks Anderson who is 6’7”, had to stand during his two-and-a-half-hour flight to Florida back in 2010. Despite asking the flight attendant to help accommodate him to an exit row she only returned saying, “you’re stuck.”
“Tall” isn’t a synonym of “confined”
Until the world of airline seats start to accommodate the tall; it will continue to be a battle between seats and kneecaps.
Maybe a TallSlim Tees couldn’t have saved Kimerov from his anti-tall airline, but it could have prevented his midriff from showing when the police were escorting him off the plane.
