[comchest]

Upon checking in for my flight from Reno to Chicago, I requested an aisle seat towards the front of the plane because I had only 40 minutes between connecting flights and I know O'Hare is a very large airport. I am also very clostraphobic and hadn't flown in 12 years.

When I went to my seat, it was occupied by another passenger who was extremely huge and did not want to move. She said her seat had been changed and she needed the aisle seat and because of her size I would probably not like her to crawl over me to go to the bathroom.

My reply was, "when you need to get up, I will move out of the way. Please go to your assigned seat." After much delay, the offender moved to the middle seat, but was hanging over into my area. The side of her belly was actually on part of my leg. The steardess offered to change "my" seat, but what she offered were window seats futher back in the plane. Due to my connecting flight situation, I could not risk it.

As it turns out, this woman was also carrying an oxygen tank, which took up a lot of leg room along with her tote bag.

I feel that American Airlines should have given special consideration to this passenger and assigned her better seating and maybe even two seats.