I'm pretty average height so I can't personally relate to this experience, but it does logically seem like you have a point. After all, it's not your fault you're so lanky; you were born that way (well.. you know what I mean.) Isn't that equally deserving of accommodation?
I wish whoever downvoted you could explain themselves to help me understand why they think tall people shouldn't be reasonably accommodated.
The term "disability" means, with respect to an individual
(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual;
...
(2) Major Life Activities
(A) In general
For purposes of paragraph (1), major life activities include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.
Disability law gives people that have been dealt a strictly shit hand by life--like eyes or legs that don't work--a bit of a less shitty day to day life.
Are all the people endlessly whining about airplane seats really going to make the case that being tall is a strictly shit hand in life? Given all the data about better pay and relationship outcomes and everything else? It's an obnoxious and the posters deserve all the downvotes they get.
If eating to the point of obesity and losing a foot to diabetes is worth accommodating, I don't see why having exceptionally awkwardly long legs shouldn't be accommodated either. In either case it's an unusual physical attribute that causes trouble for the afflicted, but in the later case the afflicted has no blame.
It shouldn't matter if you think tall people are lucky for being tall, or whatevver your hangup is. All that should matter is if their physical condition is causing them trouble.
You can probably accommodate yourself by folding your legs up a bit. Sure that's uncomfortable, but economy-class commercial flight is uncomfortable. No one wonders why airlines charge very wide passengers for two seats. If your legs are so long that you can't fit in your seat, buy another seat or buy a first-class seat.
I think OPs point is that if you have a disability and need more room than a standard seat gives, the airline will assist you and give you a different seat.
As a tall person (I'm only 6ft though) I have no idea what the seat is going to be like until I get onboard. Some aircraft (even on the same airline and route I've had differences) have plenty of room, others have my knees squished against hard plastic for three hours, forcing even my spine to not be straight. I try to get an emergency exit row or at least an isle seat, but that's not always possible. It also usually means I need to sit separate from my family (as kids can't go in emergency exit rows).
Plus airlines don't always know or advertise which seats have more leg room.
One of the European low cost airlines charges you extra for emergency exit row seats, but in one configuration I've been on only the outer seat has extra legroom.
A few years ago I was flying with some friends on a national airline, one of whom is taller and bigger than me. At the check in desk he was assigned emergency exit row 13. It turns out the aircraft didn't have a row 13, and the only spare seats were the smallest seats in the last row.
(Also I'm my experience busses/coaches are usually much worse than aircraft regarding leg room)
That isn't correct. Overweight people who need two seats are typically charged for two seats or for business class.
ITT 6' has been described both as "tall" and "pretty average height". I'm also that height, and like any other arbitrary measure of humans it depends on context. Among typical commercial flyers in mainland USA or northern Europe? No, 6' is not particularly tall in that group. That is a privileged group, so tall dudes fit right in. Somehow tall dudes even felt comfortable inserting themselves into this conversation. TFA is about blind people and how they fly commercially. Whether ignoring blind people or hating on fat people, tall people haven't represented themselves well here.
I'm 6' and consider myself average, airline seats aren't particularly problematic for me. But there are some people who are much much taller than me, such that they legitimately don't fit in those seats. And unlike the massively obese, it's not a condition inflicted on them by over-eating..
I wish whoever downvoted you could explain themselves to help me understand why they think tall people shouldn't be reasonably accommodated.