To fat to fly??!!
 

Link

Airlines Repsonse

Good on Southwest.

Thankfully, I always fly in J on long flights (over 4 hours) but on domestic/EU flights, I'm in Y.

Sitting next to someone whose seat cannot contain them isn't pleasant. I wish these people bought two seats.

I appreciate that there may be medical issues- but why should I suffer because of them?

The controversy here appears to be whether he fits in just one seat. This time he says he did, although he normally buys the two seats.

Looks like Southwest was well within their rights, as he had purchased two tickets on a later flight but tried to scoot up to an earlier flight in which two seats were not available. I don't get what he hoped to accomplish when he knowingly discarded his known winner, and gambled and lost on the possibility that there would be two seats for him to take up on an earlier flight. Am I missing something?

If he could fit in one seat, without armrest problems, etc - then why would he normally buy two?

Because the seats are cheap, it's more comfortable, and he can afford it.

The way SW handled this was awful (on a full plane, last person on board, etc.) even if it was within their policy. Not to mention the PR they are getting.

Only fat people would think this is bad PR. It makes me want SW to be my airline of choice so that I would never have to sit next to a fat person who invades my seat space.

I think the important point is that Smith made this a media event and PR problem solely through Twitter. Of course there are 6 or 7 thousand followers of Smith - but he had the airlines attention instantly. He didn't have to go on a national talk show, or get the front page of a national paper - heck he didn't need the media at all.

Who would have thought that a geek coming back from MacWorld could cause such a problem for @SouthWestAirlines with Twitter.

More like 1.6 million followers. And it is being picked up all over the place. Leo Laporte talked about it on his show today.

Wow, nice assumption about me, a person you've never met. I'm not a runway model, but I fit in a coach seat just fine. I have no concern at all that I would get thrown off a plane for being too fat.

The bad PR is due to the fact that this policy, whatever you think of it, was implemented horribly. Southwest boarded Smith as a standby passenger -- the last person on the plane. Everyone else was seated. He was recognized ("Silent Bob!"), got his bag stowed, then sat down, and *then* was approached and he told had to leave. Then he had to get his bag, and walk off in front of a full planeload of people. Neither of his seatmates -- both petite women, if you listen to his podcast -- had complained, either.

If SW honestly believed this to be an issue, then it should have been recognized as such *before* he boarded, with the full knowledge of the GA and FA's that only one middle seat was available. They saw him at the desk. They saw him at the gate when they took his BP. Why was it only an issue once he was seated, and demonstrated that he could put the seat rests down? And also, you know? There is a difference between a 4 hour flight and a 55 minute one, and for the policy to be enforced in such a way in this particular case was uncalled for.

So to me the issue here is not the policy, but how it was implemented here -- which was the most humiliating way possible. I don't care if you're fat or not, but if you can't empathize at least a little with being ejected in front of a planeload of people in this situation, then it's you I'm sorry for.

Southwest is the only airline I will not fly, I flew them after a very long trade show I was an exhibitor at and was exhausted. When I changed planes the young lady at the gate who was issuing passes felt that because I mumbled my hello in response to her greeting choose to reproach me, in front of every passenger with earshot, and tell me that it didn't hurt to be nice. I had to remind her that I was a paying customer and that her job was to issue me a pass.

Southwest is also the same airline that an FA had a passenger removed because they felt she was showing to much cleavage. Southwest employees in my opinion have no sense of tact when it comes to passengers who do not meet the airlines official and invented standards of behavior.

Couldn't agree with you more, its not like they could tell he had a weight problem until he sat down.

I could ask the same question about anyone who pays a lot to fly in F.

Consider: The GA and FAs don't know he's too big until they see him in his seat and see he's encroaching on the space of the people beside him. Should they challenge him first when they don't know if he fits or not??? I can imagine the squawks that would have caused.

We have here a POS who knew he took two seats and tried to avoid the policy in order to get a better flight time. I think Southwest did makea mistake here: Giving him any compensation.

Then there should be some way of dealing with this *before* boarding. It could hardly be worse or more humiliating than what they did here.

According to KS he usually bought two seats for comfort, and because it was cheap, not because he was required to. He could put the armrests down (which he demonstrated for the GA who tossed him off) and buckle the seat belt without an extension (because he did so on the flight he actually took). Isn't that the objective standard? And if there is no objective standard, the policy is questionable, and enforcing it so vigorously in this case on such a short flight was pretty ridiculous.

Well, he refused it, so no problem there. He's pretty clear that he's never flying SW again.

I personally witnessed a woman at PHX be told she would have to purchase a second seat because of her size while she was at the WN check-in counter. It seems they didn't give her the chance to prove she could fit in the seat.

How could you possibly know if Smith had set out on a mission to bilk WN out of the cost of a second seat? You make it sound like he was out to get WN and specifically planned to take an earlier flight to avoid the cost.

You saw her today? How do you know about her? She cannot allowed to purchase 2 ticket. Only you are allowed 1 ticket pre-customers. She didn't appreciate it for her behavioral. GA could be denied her boarding into the aircraft due to her obese. She won't be guaranteed for flying on WN for rest of the life.

This was not today. This was approximately 18 months ago.

Perhaps the agent was not following the rules or rhe policy was different then, but the passenger was told she had to buy a second ticket due to her size.

So? Just because some cases are so clear-cut you don't need to see them in the seat doesn't mean they all are.

I'm not saying the intent was to bilk them out of a seat. I think the intent was to get on a flight that didn't have the extra seat for him.

OK, first things first - to the OP: It's "too", not "to".

Now then...

If you can stomach it, the 1.5 hour 'SModcast' is worth a listen, as Smith goes into great detail about his WN experience. Here's the nutshell, reasonably free of commentary and gratuitous expletives:
1) He has no trouble passing the WN "fat test" of armrests down, seatbelt fastened.
2) He buys the second seat because he prefers having a gap between him & other passengers when travelling - it's a personal space issue, not a 'too fat to fit' issue.
3) He was made aware of the need to fit in one seat, and had no issue with it.
4) He was made aware that if he went standby on the earlier flight, there was only one seat available - again, he had no issue.
5) On boarding, he was questioned by an agent in the jetway as to whether or not he was a 'revenue' passenger - Smith responded that he was, although as he tells it, the agent was iffy about this response.
6) By his reckoning, he was in his seat (he says 'the first row', so 1E?) for all of 15 seconds before an agent pulled him off the flight 'by order of the pilot'. As he tells it, he had no line of sight to the pilot, so there's no way the pilot could have seen him - he suspects that the agent in the jetway had him pulled off. He attempts to prove to the agent that he can pass the 'fat test' by putting the armrests down AND surveys the passengers in 1D & 1F regarding their comfort, but is still pulled off.
7) The GA who pulled him off the flight and rebooked him would only site 'safety concerns', without specifically citing the 'passenger of size' rule OR explaining how the pilot was able to assess his situation without a line of sight.
8) Smith is offered a $100 travel voucher for his trouble, and is rebooked onto his original flight with his extra seat. (He refuses the voucher.)
9) He boards his original flight in boarding group A & takes his seat (judging from his description & TwitPic, 1A). A 'husky' woman sits in 1C. The woman is then pulled off the plane and it's 'suggested' she buy a second seat - despite the fact that the other passenger in her row (Smith) has already purchased the middle seat, and no passenger will be sitting there. This is what really set him off (he said that he saw his daughter's face in the woman in 1C) and prompted him to record the podcast.
10) WN says they've tried to contact Smith, but he says he has not received a single phone call (as of last night).

I acknowledge that this is just his side of the story, and we'll probably never get a full recapping from WN. WN's official version frankly leaves a lot to be desired, and effectively equates "purchases 2 seats" with "too fat for one seat", which in my view (as a fellow 'passenger of size') is unacceptable.

Smith goes off the rails toward the end of the 90 minutes (there are unnecessary comparisons to Hitler & the Nazis), but he makes an excellent point - more of America looks like him (between slightly- and somewhat-overweight) than not, and that if WN were truly concerned about the 'comfort of their passengers', they'd design a seat capable of accommodating a typical passenger rather than an ideal. (It was pointed out on Twitter that WN's own founder would likely be a POS under the current policy.) He closes by saying that he's going to vote with his wallet & never fly WN again.

All of this just reaffirms my staunch refusal to fly WN...

I agree it's uncomfortable to sit next to a person who cannot fit in their seat. But I don't think kicking people off an aircraft is a solution I agree with. The airline can charge them extra, as weight is related to the cost of flying the passenger.

I sat next to one who needed a belt extender. It was in F so she could not encroach into my seat. It was difficult for her to get in and out of her seat.

After Katrina, I started gaining weight. I gained so much weight that I could not put the tray (those trays that were stowed in the armrest and could not be slid out) down on some of the smaller jets. Never needed a seat belt extender, nor did I have problem with the tray on all aircraft or all seats in the same aircraft. That problem has gone away now, since I have lost nearly 45 pounds. One factor in my weight gain was disruption in my metabolism due to OSA.

And apparently he'll be on Larry King tonight.

I wonder if it's possible that his clear tendency toward profanity had anything to do with him getting kicked off the plane.

Since this is not specifically related to travel safety or security and there is an active thread on the topic in the Southwest Forum, we'll close this one.

Please feel free to contribute to the active thread.

Thanks.


_____________________________

Cholula
TS/S Co-Moderator