The Cairns Post created somewhat of a shit storm recently when it reported on a woman who had the audacity to complain about having to pay for two seats on an plane because she was rather more than average in size.

Crowing that their report had made international headlines and had been the subject of much debate on their website after the original story was printed, it seems like The Cairns Post feel they've done journalism proud.

Bollocks.

The opening paragraph in the original story, about an overweight woman who paid for two seats on a plane only to find that they were on opposite sides of the plane, begins thus:  "A Cairns woman says there is a fat chance she'll fly with Jetstar again after she claims she was discriminated against for being overweight". A fat chance? A FAT CHANCE? This is supposed to be a news article, not a sly dig at someone's personal situation by a cheeky pun. I'm going to chalk up one nomination for "Low of The Year" for that disgustingly unprofessional intro.

The follow-up article where TCP praises themselves for breaking such a successful story was titled "Samantha a Big Hit". Once again, TCP tries to make a pun on an unfortunate personal situation.

I never bothered to watch the Fox segment, but after following the story for several days it became clear that Samantha's actual issue with Jetstar was not that she was forced to pay for two seats (in the original story it mentions she had discussions with Jetstar staff regarding this policy, so she was obviously not unaware of it), but that Jetstar had said they would work around the issue and then reneged on their stance and asked her to pay for a 2nd seat and then in a fit of genius allocated that seat somewhere else on the plane.

The comments on the original story made me want to punch my computer screen in anger (but I didn't because it's shiny and big and expensive). Most of them were in the vein of "lose some weight you fatty bitch/fatties r gross n i hate sitting nxt 2 dem on da plane ew lose wt!" and calling for Samantha to stop complaining and get on a treadmill, all of which miss the point of the article (the two seats being in different sections of the plane) and completely disregard the fact that there are many other reasons for obesity that have nothing to do with being a lazy cow who scoffs cheeseburgers all day (diabetes, thyroid disease, etc). Some comments were insightful, well thought out and not inflammatory, but the majority made me disgusted at the ridiculous amount of intolerance people have.

As a frequent flyer, I can well attest to the fact that Jetstar have very screwy policies. They've screwed me for scandalous baggage fees at one leg of my trip and then not a cent extra on the return leg. They're also late 100% of the time when I flew with them. Unfortunately at the time for me, being on minimum wage and in a long distance relationship with George I couldn't exactly afford to fly with any other airline. Catching a flight that should arrive at 11.30pm isn't fun at the best of times but is especially un-fun when you arrive at 3am. Another time they completely cancelled my 7pm return flight and put me on a 6am flight instead, effectively cutting short my holiday by an entire day (and that was the ONLY flight option to return that day so I had to accept it). While it's an unfortunate situation for Samantha, it's also nice to see that I'm not the only one that Jetstar have fucked around.

Enough paying out on Jetstar however, let's get back to talking about how stupid The Cairns Post is. I'd be taking The Cairns Post to the anti-discrimination tribunal for that introduction.