Deny boarding to the overweight passenger. No chance of that unless you want to risk a civil-rights lawsuit. The overweight fellow had bought and paid for a ticket; he had a right to board.
People of exceptional size are apparently denied boarding on a regular basis over on Southwest Airlines. In fact paid passengers of all shapes and sizes risk getting bumped from any number of full (or nearly full) flights on every airline I've ever flown. It's not as though the average casual airline passenger can easily dis/prove precisely why they were bumped in a court of law unless the airline staff volunteer that information. Not to mention that US airlines have far more legal protection from consumers than most Americans seem to realize.
Before Denver International Airport was built, at Stapleton it was a regular event to get denied boarding due to weight restrictions, specially in the summer. Short runway at Stapleton was to blame and many flight departed on 3/4ths full. I have spent countless nights in Denver having been denied boarding and bumped to the first morning flight to Salt Lake City on transfer from EWR at Denver.
Actually it was a combination of the altitude (5290') and less than ideal runway length.
Well, if we're going to get technical then I suppose we could say it was a combination of
altitude, runway length, weight, temperature, route length, available lift, maximum thrust, and so on. I'm sorry for simply saying "full or nearly full" when I could have brought all that up. :lol:
Having piloted planes out an adjacent airport and flown out of Stapleton commercially, I think I can speak to the main concerns and limitations that apply. For airlines the route length, thrust, runway length are essentially fixed. For airports in Denver, summer time temperatures raise the density altitude to a point that the lift cannot safely support the plane. The only variable available to the pilot is aircraft gross weight. That means reducing one or all of these; fuel load, luggage and passengers. Guess what the airlines do? Pilots always are concerned with high, hot, and humid. BTW, I was not replying to you but to jis.