Airline seating has always been tough for a big guy.  You have few choices.  Suck it in and live with the tight seating, upgrade to a business class or first class seat to get a little more comfort, or purchase a second seat.  Otherwise, for comfort’s sake, we will choose to travel by other means.

Kevin Smith took to Twitter on Saturday after allegedly being thrown off of a Southwest Airlines flight for being “too big to fly.”  I’m still absorbing and processing all the information about what happened, but here’s how the average media outlet covered the situation. Kevin Smith is not known for being a modest person, especially about uncomfortable topics, and his weight is no exception.  He really has never had much of a problem speaking about his weight, but based on comments he’s made in the past, he’s just as conscious and apologetic about his size as most big and tall guys when he is in public.

Smith produces an audio podcast called SModcast, where he lambasted Southwest for the poor decision-making and customer service extended to him regarding the incident.  Apparently, Smith bought multiple tickets for a flight earlier in the week to the MacWorld convention because his wife was supposed to go with him but ended up canceling at the last minute, however this information has been spread as that he routinely does this because of his size, which he claims is not the case.

When he found he could get a standby seat on a flight that would allow him to arrive home earlier in the day, he jumped at the opportunity.  Only after he had his baggage on board and stepped on to the plane for the 5:20PM flight was he told that he was deemed a “safety risk” by the airplane’s captain and asked to leave the aircraft.

Smith claims both passengers on either side of him weren’t bothered by his presence (he asked) but the the flight attendant persisted, stating “We’ll try to make it up to you outside”.  He also claimed that he saw and made eye contact with another large man on the plane who appeared to be in a panic that the same thing was about to happen to him.  Smith claims he felt targeted as the other overweight passenger was not asked to leave the completely full airplane, however Smith didn’t want to draw attention to his fellow big & tall passenger.

During and immediately following the incident, he began sending twitter messages and certainly had a lot to say on the topic, which I’ve outlined below.  The screen shot of the above tweet was the first tweet, here’s what followed  There’s a lot to read, so bear with me…

Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”  5:58 PM Feb 13th from Echofon

So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.  6:06 PM Feb 13th from Echofon

Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.  6:10 PM Feb 13th from Echofon

Dear @SouthwestAir, I’m on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies.  6:41 PM Feb 13th from Echofon

And, hey? @SouthwestAir? I didn’t even need a seat belt extender to buckle up. Somehow, that shit fit over my “safety concern”-creating gut.  6:44 PM Feb 13th from Echofon

Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw 6:52 PM Feb 13th from Echofon

After being booted from the plane, Smith was told at the customer service counter that he was not kicked off the plane by the pilot after all, but was removed due to a “safety concern” which he believes stems from a male employee in the jetway who questioned his presence boarding the plane.  Southwest staff couldn’t seem to appropriately explain the safety concern, other than that he was taking up more than the standard passenger “space allotment”.  Employees appeared not to use the word “fat” because of their fear of getting sued over using such terminology.

After being offered a one hundred dollar voucher for his troubles but not many other answers in regards to the situation, Smith decided that he would take to Twitter and rely on social networking to spread the word about his story.  After arriving home that evening, it was then that Smith took to his podcast, along with his wife with whom he was telling the story to, explaining the details of his side of the story.

There’s a lot more to the story, and perhaps it’d be easier to listen to the whole SModcast Episode to get a better idea of Kevin’s side of the story.  In essence, he claims that he planned to let the whole thing go and vote with his dollars (by choosing a different airline) but heard a really similar story of mean-spirited customer service towards “people of size”  by a shy young lady sitting next to him on his now much delayed flight home.

So, Southwest has offered an official apology on their blog to Kevin Smith entitled “Not So Silent Bob”.  But it’s not exactly convincing.  The verbiage is vague and still points to his weight, when he claims to frequently fly purchasing only a single seat.  Here’s what Kevin had to say about it:

@SouthwestAir “Our apology to KevinSmith and more details regarding the events from last night: http://cot.ag/96KHC7 ” So your apology is “Sorry, sir. But you ARE kinda fat…”? I flew out AND back IN ONE SEAT, YOU PIECES OF SHIT! SModcast in two hrs tells WHOLE story.  about 20 hours ago from web

Smith has a platform to speak out against Southwest, and he’s certainly using it.  From what you read on Twitter and in other places, it’s become large versus small in a battle of who deserves the seating more.  A few folks told me they wanted to see what I have to say on the issue, and I suppose that’s what I should write here…  The above is mostly just reporting what actually happened from a few different angles.

When I find out I have to fly, I immediately get nervous about it.  Even if it’s months in advance.  I’m not just big, I’m also tall, which Kevin Smith isn’t.  I have several aspects to consider when I fly… the seat width is generally less of an issue for me than is the headroom and legroom.  But combine the lack of all these things into a complete package which will make me just about as uncomfortable as I’m ever going to be in any situation.  Also, when I “encroach” on to someone else’s space…  it’s not my torso that’s the problem (Kevin Smith calls this his “gut”), usually it’s my shoulders.  I’m built like a linebacker, which means I’ve got some weight packed on the torso, however my shoulder width and legs are literally enormous when compared to the average sized human.  I fit in the seat, I just take up more of the free space in the area it provides.  I wouldn’t call it comfortable, but I wouldn’t say I don’t fit.  I’ve seen men taller and some much wider than me “fit” into places they shouldn’t, and yet they live with it.

Smith makes a really strong point on his podcast, one that I have always lived by:  “I would never choose that seat if there was a fraction of a chance that I could not fit into it.  That’s how I live my life, I’m a fat person.  We navigate the world differently than other people, we have to think ten steps in advance for our own dignity.”  The preceeding quote may be the most profound piece of this whole insane story…

We do live differently day-to-day, we navigate it with the knowledge that if we don’t think ahead that an embarrassing situation is sure to await us.

This reference to dignity is something that most airlines haven’t been very good about when it comes to their policies on people of size.  Southwest says that you must be able to sit in the seat with both armrests down or else you are a “person of size”.  I would say on most planes, my torso fits in that area well enough, but I still like to have the aisle armrest up so I’m not forced to be restricted.  It helps me angle my body out into the aisle a little better so I can put my leg out there and stretch it out a bit.

On an Airplane, we are given a box to fit in.  If you don’t exactly fit in this box the way that they want, you are not an optimal customer.  An optimal customer is a high revenue customer, and thus they are the most appreciated.  Those customers who cause issues or don’t fit into the airline’s “box” for which they get the best revenue often get the short end of the stick.

Society has many boxes for us Big and Tall people.  These boxes are very interesting.  If you are large,  you are given a free pass if you are wealthy or famous, but otherwise they’d rather not bother with treating you in a similar fashion as everyone else because it’s a hassle to them.  Kevin Smith finally got treated, maybe for the first time since he was young, how we all get treated for being big and tall.  Did the airline handle this properly?  No.  Could Kevin Smith have done something differently to alter the outcome of the situation?  Possibly.  But ultimately, there’s still a long way to go before we figure out how to treat people who don’t fit into society’s little boxes with some dignity and respect.

While Kevin seems to have mostly laid this to rest on his blog, as it appears he’s now tired of fighting about it, I think the point still remains that we all need to be a little more tolerant.

Categories: Travel
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