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Passengers intending to fly business class on Thai Airways’ new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft will have to first pass the waist test.

Flight Lieutenant Pratthana Pattanasirim, THAI’s director of security and flight standard division, said on Friday that a passenger with waist wider than 56 inches cannot fly business class on Boeing 787-9.

He explained that the business class seats have been installed with new safety belts and airbag system by the manufacturer in accordance with the safety standards of the US Federal Aviation Administration.

The safety belt cannot accommodate a passenger whose waist is larger than 56 inches.

Pratthana said the new safety-belt system cannot accommodate a parent with a child sitting on his or her lap hence parents travelling with young children also cannot fly business class on the Dreamliner.

THAI received the two Dreamliner planes in September last year and on March 6 announced that passengers with waist wider than 56 inches and carrying a lap-held infant could not fly business class.

Pratthana’s clarifications on Friday came in the wake of Thai papers carrying headlines that the airline had banned “fat people from flying the Dreamliner”.