Regardless of your size, if you get on a plane and realise that the seatbelt won’t do up, you can feel embarrassed and uncomfortable.
But fear not because it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the fact that, just like people, planes vary. You haven’t gained weight on the small amount of time you’ve been away, and TikToker Kirsty Leanne wants to remind you that even if you do need an extender, there’s absolutely no shame in it.
She captioned the video: “Another reason needing a seatbelt extender does not define you as a person! If you need one, whether it’s frayed or not, it’s okay”.
Over the top of the video, she penned: “When you find out the real reason seatbelts on airplanes can differ in size from one seat to the next is because a lot of airlines trim them when they’re broken and frayed, rather than replacing them”.
When someone tried to debunk her in the comments, she said: “I’ve spoken with many airline staff that say this is what they do”.
Another backed Kirsty, saying: “Then explain because I’ve taken like 20 flights in the last year and only one leg of one flight required a seat belt extender”.
Someone else shared: “I switched seats (right next to each other) with my daughter mid-flight. One seatbelt had tons of room; the other was short by over 6 inches!”
A woman on Mumsnet pointed out that she’d experienced something similar, saying that she flew recently “and needed a seatbelt extender as it was an inch or two short,” but was shocked as she’d “not had an issue before on other airlines” and her “size hadn’t changed” so was “surprised”. But she did note that “it wasn’t an issue”.
“On the return flight, I just asked for an extender as we boarded,” she explained, but then said she flew again recently and needed an extender on the flight there but not the flight back. “Very strange,” she concluded.
In the comments, someone pointed out: “Seatbelts can wear/break and be replaced – hence the varied length. I would expect that with any airline.”
Another penned: “I think this is a thing with several airlines, the older planes can have shorter seatbelts”. They then shared their experience of flying recently, saying: “On the way out, the seatbelt did up but only just.
“It was an emergency seat, so I was very panicky about the journey back in case I ate too much on holiday, and we all had to move seats as you can’t have a seatbelt extender in emergency exit seats. On the way back, though, it was a newer plane, and there were several inches of spare seatbelt. Phew!”
According to Flyer Talk, sometimes one or both sections of the belt can be caught down the side or under the seat, thus shortening the length. Usually, the buckle end.