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Southwest Airlines decides actor Kevin Smith is "too fat" to fly with them - kicks him off plane
Oh Southwest Airlines... You make yourself look good by staying away from those pesky baggage charges, then you go and make yourself look ridiculous by kicking a famous actor off your plane because the captain decided he was "a safety risk" for being too fat to fly.
Bad, bad move.
See, Kevin Smith has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, who all get to read just how unfairly he was treated, and how the airline tried to make everything better with a $100 voucher.
Of course, this is not the first time the airline has managed to get in the news with stupid decisions by its staff - last time they made the news, an overweight passenger was barred from flying, and missed the funeral of his uncle.
UPDATE: Southwest airlines issued a public apology this afternoon, along with their side of the story. Sadly, their page won't load right correctly now, so we have posted their response here for you to read.
As you can see, there is indeed another side to the story. That said - Mr. Smith confirmed that he could sit with the armrests down and without the use of a seatbelt extender, so despite their statement, there still remains the issue that someone at their airline decided he was too large.
Filed under: North America, United States, Airlines
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
joey jo jo Feb 14th 2010 12:45PM
Defenestration means to be thrown out of a window. It has nothing to do with flying. Nice try on the technical jargon but you just look like an ass.
Dave m Feb 14th 2010 3:42PM
Who do you think you are 4chan? Sign your "posts", if you can call the amalgammation of drivel a post. And het a dictionary, thesaurus, and AP stylebook. You need all three. Otherwise we don't even take you seriously. Get off the interwebz!
Sorry for the inconvenience Kevin, but what's a big star like you doing in coach anyway? :-p
DogsEarsUp Feb 14th 2010 3:45AM
Southwest's policy on passengers of 'size' is regularly held up on several Frequent Flyer Bulletin Boards as being one of both considerable eloquence and a very practical and common-sense response to what is for other passengers, a very real problem - see http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_guidelines.html
This appears to be nothing more than a questionable implementation of that policy by a staff member. The company will investigate I'm sure, and if re-training is appropriate for a group of employees, then that will happen. This is hardly Supreme Court stuff. The celebrity aspect is a diversion. Should the normal rules be suspended simply because the person in question is a 'celebrity' or because they have a twitter following?
Anybody can have a point of view, and anybody with the appropriate device can twitter. The ability to communicate doesn't make what you have to communicate right - or even interesting.
rafaelc378 Feb 14th 2010 4:20AM
I agree that normal rules shouldn't be suspended due to celebrity. I think Mr. Smith is causing a stink because of how inconsiderately he and another heavy flier on the flight were treated.
Considering he was flying on standby (as shown above in his tweets in the article), the gate attendants could have easily sized him up as possibly taking up more than one seat and told him that he would need to purchase two seats in order to fly. Instead, he was cleared to board, was in his seat and luggage stowed, and only then was he very publicly told to exit the aircraft due to his size and the safety factor that the pilot gave.
I think he recognizes that he'll get special consideration from SWA executives now compared to other heavier fliers and is willing to point out that disparity:
@ThatKevinSmith: "(1/2) @3rdVentureBro "They're only apologizing because smith has a platform to express his displeasure." Bingo. It's disingenuous as f--k. (2/2) Wait 'til you hear SMod story about the girl sitting next to me who was pulled aside & chastised for not buying an additional seat."
(Above expletive redacted by me)
Christi Day has tweeted that SWA will investigate the incident and Kate-Madonna has commended SWA for their response. My question, as I alluded to above, is would a non-celebrity receive such consideration after the fact, after being publicly embarrassed on a flight?
I don't think they would nor would they have a Customer Service VP calling them about the incident. Only after someone in a position to publicly and willingly rebuke SWA for their lack of discretion in such matters would such re-training take place.
SRT Feb 14th 2010 8:55AM
I am so tired of very overweight (fat) people spilling over into my chair space that it is ridiculous. Good they should get kicked off maybe it will save their life.
CaptDangledoo Feb 14th 2010 9:05AM
I'm sick of sickly looking pointy elbowed, anorexic people, poking me during flights with their pale skinned knife edged skeleton bodies. Do youself a favor a lose more weight maybe we will all benefit from your lack of body mass and you'll blow away from all the hotair and B.S. you spew. Or float away on your over inflated ego.
Ryan Feb 14th 2010 9:31AM
Hmm...seems to me you're the one with too much of an ego, if you think it's perfectly acceptable to take over half the seat of the person next to you. That's incredibly rude. If you can't fit in your seat, you should by two tickets. And no one skinny is hitting you with their pointy elbows or any of your nonsense.
Mike Baron Feb 14th 2010 9:11AM
There's a fine line between being PC and being realistic. I'm not an engineer or a physician. I do know, however, that aisles and doors are only so wide, seats are only so accommodating, and that people can exceed these dimensions.
I adore Kevin Smith, but at the same time, while feeling no animosity toward the man, I'm glad he didn't get preferential treatment because of his status. I've often said that the only way things will ever change, in cases of injustice, is if all rules are enforced equally all the time. Take for instance speed limits. If everyone got a ticket every time they broke the speed limit, speed limits would reflect an actual safe speed for driving, and not a speed which is significantly lower. However, the current approach to speed limits is sort of the reverse of accommodating celebrity; it is the discrimination against the perceived infamous, e.g., minorities, young men, people with sports cars or out of state plates, and drivers older vehicles.
If you think the rules are wrong, and that fat people need to be allowed to fly, have the rules on aircraft construction changed to allow them to do so safely. Do not pick fights expecting special treatment because of who you are.
To say that "they don't know who they messed with; you can't do that to Kevin Smith" is counterproductive and elitist.
Ryan Feb 14th 2010 9:27AM
If you're too fat to fit in the seat, you need to buy two tickets. Kevin says he could put both arms down, but somehow I doubt it. There should be a seat at the check-in downstairs, for overweight people to sit in to make sure they can fit, just like we do with carryon luggage.
Kid Vicous Feb 14th 2010 10:06AM
It seems a lot of you have forgotten, or were yet unborn when the size of seats in airliners was decreased so that more seats could fit on planes. I am a bodybuilder who competes in international competition, there is no way my upper body fits into the same area as my lower body. I'm also 6.3. I refuse to purchase the extra seat because my body fat mass index # is lower than 99% of normal humans.
I always fly first class because unless we have a snow problem like now, or a national holiday, first class in nearly empty.
Go get em Silent Bob! Make em put the seats the size of recliners back in so everybody can be comfortable.
Then only if you are too big for a Wallaway recliner would the two seat minimum apply.
cblock2 Feb 14th 2010 11:38AM
I don't have a problem with the Southwest policy in principle - having had other people's flab crammed up against me for hours at a time, I have little tolerance for "overflow".
However, Southwest does seem to have problems with the policy in practice - the recent episode with the gentleman who missed his uncle's funeral was simply ridiculous...a simple gate announcement asking for a volunteer would have solved the problem. And in this instance, playing the "safety" card when the passenger met the objective standard - putting both armrests down, not requiring a belt extender - makes the application even more questionable.
@Kid Vicous (btw, what does "Vicous" mean?) - while it's commendable that you fly first class to deal with the space issue, what does BMI have to do with anything? If you extend beyond your seat, you extend beyond your seat - whether it's fat or muscle is irrelevant. And as for your "make the seats bigger" idea, the vast majority of passengers fit in the current seats - why should we have to pay more (bigger seats = less people on plane = higher fares) 'cause a few people are large?
Rex Veritas Mar 1st 2010 12:41PM
Kevin who? Is he important in some way?
Glenn G3 Pictures Feb 14th 2010 1:38PM
Kevin is a talented writer and director who speaks his mind. Southwest Airlines will pay the price. This issue has been in the news before and is akin to discrimination against race , sexual preference et.al. While they're devising a PR campaign why not devise an accommodating seat for everyone who has the 'privilege' to fly. We pay enough for it.
FellowFattie Feb 14th 2010 1:03PM
Hang on a sec. Has he ballooned up to 300 pounds or something? 'cause I'm about a "Mallrats Kevin Smith" level of portly these days and I fit just fine in an airline seat. I don't ooze or roll to the side. You'll hit my shoulders long before you touch any other part of me. Someone would have to lean WAY over the armrest to make contact with my gut.
Ah. Looking at recent pictures, he's packed on a few since then. Still, this is the kind of thing that needs to be handled at checkin. There's no excuse for letting one of us board the plane, get seated, then say, "Holy crap, nobody noticed what a fattie you are until you sat down. You're going to have to get off. Sorry about your bags."
By the time someone's boarded the plane, you need to have an excuse along the lines of "She just went into labor" or "He stabbed the guy next to him" to remove someone from a plane.
If they're fat when they sit down, they were fat when they made contact with the first airline employee and should have been dealt with at first contact. The people who passed him through checkin and boarding without raising any flags failed to do their jobs. If employees screw up like that, you don't punish the customer to "fix" it. Give his seatmate a voucher for a free flight and retrain your employees.
Potlicker Feb 14th 2010 1:07PM
SWA has been a cattle herding airline for the last twenty years. The WalMart of the skies. You get what you pay for in that $59 dollar fare. Customer service packed with twentysomething year olds who just learned how to get to work on time and put their own gas in their car.
Karen Feb 14th 2010 1:25PM
The "fatty" rule has been used by some airline people for non-safety reasons, so I can empathize.
I am not a tiny gal by any means, but I am also no where near too fat to need an extra seat. I wear a size below (12) the national average. I am a runner (half marathon), so I'm not a slob of jelly. I can easily get both armrests down and frequently fly on Dash-8s and smaller planes. I'm no anorexic starlet, but I'd guess that I am close to normal person size, perhaps with a bit more muscle that most women.
I had a very rude gate agent tell me that she was going to have me barred from the flight because I was too fat to fly. I just stared at her, not knowing what to say. At 5' 5" and 160 pounds, I'm no where near too fat to fly. Yet a psycho UA gate agent felt that she needed to scream about my weight and threaten me with barring me from flying. I kept my cool and asked to speak with the pilot, whom she said was too busy to do that part of his job. I stood my ground and said that if she was going to deny me boarding that I insisted that she follow the correct process, including calling supervisor or the purser or the pilot to make the final decision. I also requested that the denial of boarding be given to me in writing.
At that point, she claimed that she was going to have me arrested for not leaving the gate area. It was driving her absolutely insane that I was not getting mad, nor was I responding to her escalating volume and tone in kind. A man standing beside me asked her if she was okay...if she needed someone to call somebody because he thought maybe she was having "some sort of episode". I was also worried because at one point she was also drooling/spitting when she spoke and her face was bright red. It was very bizarre.
There were plenty of men around waiting to board who were larger than me (not fat, just taller and wider.) None of them were getting this treatment.
She never did anything, like take my boarding pass or call security. So when the worker at the door called for boarding, I got in line. Crazy Agent was too busy at the desk to see. The men who were standing near me at the desk decided to block her vision of the door by crowding around me to get me on the plane. I boarded and expected to have the crazy lady storm onto the plane and try to pull me off. But it didn't happen.
Once the door closed, the people sitting around me started peppering me with questions and saying that they had been afraid to say anything lest they get booted, too. The problem with having passenger rights is that we can't expect to have them when flying, lest we get labeled uncooperative.
It was a very odd situation all around. I also makes me wonder how many people have had to suffer through such a poorly handled sensitive situation.
doubled Feb 14th 2010 1:36PM
I fly southwest a lot. Lose some weight. Nobody wants to sit next to you with your blubber oozing under the armrest. Seriously.
Cyndal Feb 14th 2010 3:10PM
Tell it like it is....Yiu are right! I cant believe the blog after mine. My mom is fat!! I LOVE her with all my life but its not a disability. Thats who has all of the handicap parking. Thats the REAL crime. My neighbor complains about this ALL OF THE time. I just like the fact someone has the gall to just tell it like it is. Thank You.
JT Feb 14th 2010 2:19PM
If he is to fat to fly, the airline violated the American with disability act, and he would receive a fat compensation.
Obesity (fatness) is being recognized as a disability.
The one who smiles the last is the one who one who prevails.
He deserves a fat compensation for being discriminated in a violation of American with Disability Act.
Cyndal Provenzano Feb 14th 2010 2:53PM
With all of the technology we have these days, seems we still can’t communicate! Wouldn’t it had been easier to explain to Kevin , the armrest in the isle seats take approx 3 inches away from the path of exit when they are in the “UP” position. Just like a the seatbelt extenders can cause passengers to trip if in the event they must exit an aircraft. It only affects taxing, taking off, and landing. I’m sure something could have been worked out between the flight crew & Kevin. I’m an ex flight attendant. If the obese passenger has issues with safety procedures and refuses to relocate seats after every effort has been made to accommodate, then yes, the airline should not sacrifice other passenger’s safety to accommodate the comfort of a passenger who just happen to be obese. We don’t know the whole story, but I notice Kevin was in a window seat in the photo he had taken on his alternate flight... Hmmmm.