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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.