Call it an armrest-ling contest.
A middle-seat brawl broke out on a recent Delta flight when a passenger clashed with his larger seatmate over armrest rights.
The drama kicked off when the shirty seatmate plopped down beside the larger man — promptly elbowing him.
In the skirmish that followed, words flew — literally — about Weight Watchers and waistlines, even though dieting tips aren’t exactly inflight essentials.
The bigger passenger, whose name is Guy Branum, complained to crew about being hit — while the other, a man reportedly in his 60’s, whined he was “too fat to fly.”
Branum found himself in the hotseat however, recounting that the airline considered tossing him from the plane — further demanding he delete a video he shot of the irksome event.
In a Threads video post, Branum shared his side of the story. He captioned it, “On Sunday a guy hit me on a plane, and @delta didn’t throw him off the flight or have him arrested because they were too busy determining if I was too fat or not.”
He continued, writing that “the flight crew was amazing and supportive,” but that ground-based customer service staff treated him “like an object.”
Branum, a larger passenger who usually splurges on business class for extra space, recounted his uneasiness over taking a middle seat in the plane’s Comfort+ section.
And he could see trouble coming before it even arrived — reportedly, the chaos started the septuagenarian scrapper “freaked out at a woman” using the overhead bin, then plopped down next to Branum and demanded he slide over. He stressed that he couldn’t.
“Then he just elbowed me as hard as he could,” Branum recalled.
Branum also shared a clip of the man grinning like he’d won the lottery — right after allegedly assaulting the video creator.
Branum told the camera, “He elbowed me because he believes that I’m too fat to be sitting next to him,” as the man, seen next to him, grinned and quipped, “Whoa. Who wouldn’t believe that?”
The man whined about paying for his seat. Branum noted he had paid, too, before the man suggested they “at least share the armrest.”
Branum shot back, “Yes. We’re not sharing the armrest right now. You are using the armrest because you elbowed me to get out.”
Trying to de-escalate, Branum asked, “How do you think we should solve this problem?” The man muttered something Branum cut off: “You think I should exist differently? Let’s be fair, you are hardly svelte yourself.”
The man then bragged, “I’m a member of Weight Watchers. I swear to you. I can show you on my phone. That is how I lost the weight.”
Branum fired back, “You think I’m a fat person in this country and I never tried to lose weight?”
Branum told his followers, “When a flight attendant came by I told them that he had hit me but I was okay to stay in the seat if necessary.”
The man, meanwhile, complained that Branum was “too fat,” prompting crew members to inspect him.
“When Delta solves a problem they send a red coat lady,” Branum said. The attendant discreetly pulled the man aside and made it clear Branum wouldn’t be kicked off.
She then asked another passenger across the aisle to swap seats — she agreed, and Delta even offered her some miles. Branum requested some too, and she said, “sure.”
The attendant also asked Branum to delete the video he had recorded, but he refused, and fellow passengers chimed in about the rude man’s “difficult” behavior.
Branum added, “Fat people shouldn’t be waiting for some future moment when we’ll be worthy of traveling and living our lives.”
As previously reported by The Post, starting Jan. 27, 2026, plus-size Southwest Airlines passengers who spill into the next seat will have to buy an extra one upfront, as per CBS News.
“To ensure space, we are communicating to customers who have previously used the extra seat policy that they should purchase it at booking,” the airline’s reps said in a recent statement.
The rule targets flyers who “encroach upon the neighboring seat,” and critics have slammed Southwest online, long known as a plus-size-friendly airline.
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