OMG, a young Micheal Moore! What a talent!

I'd be quaking in my flight boots if I was SWA.

NOT.

I'd have refused to be squished into a seat next to him. Sorry to break this to you, but extra weight means extra fuel expended, and that's expensive. If he doesn't want to pay for two seats, then he doesn't have to fly SWA. He's not big from a glandular condition.

Hello, Doc Epador. At first I was thinking about carrying this post in a whole different direction as I had been making some funny jokes about this today, including a funny rap song I wrote this morning about Kevin Smith called, "Too Phat Ta Fly", but then I thought that seemed sort of mean and unfunny.

It was no doubt a humiliating experience for this filmmaker, so I feel sympathy for him in that regard. If some people aren't allowed to fly because of their weight or because of disabilities, that doesn't seem real fair to me. America is supposed to be a land of equal opportunity you know.

Paul, if the man takes up more than one seat, then he should pay for what he uses. It's that simple. And if there isn't enough room for him to have those two seats, then tough -- should Southwest bump another paying passenger simply to accomodate Smith's excessive mass? Or should someone who paid for a whole seat have to deal with Smith's encroaching on a significant portion of their seat?

And I say that as someone somewhat larger than I should be.

J.

Mean and Humiliating?

He has only been mean to himself if not others, and he is the one humiliating himself.

Hmmmm. What bothers me is the way this issue is being cast. Problem is, the airlines have not exactly been ethical in how they have done business in the past four or five decades, have they? I forget the first time I read that seat size and leg room were cut to mash more people into a flying tube than could reasonably be done. I mean, for comparison, a bus is not exactly luxury travel but the seats and legroom are significantly better than what is offered in any ordinary airline.

Passengers are given lousy food, rotten "service", luggage is commonly lost, damaged, pilfered, and abused, on-time arrival is a myth, new fees are added and raised constantly ... you get the idea. Morally, Southwest Airlines has ZERO grounds for whining, and by-the-way if they felt that Mr. Smith was too big for one seat they should have informed him of the additional charge when he bought his ticket. If there is a restriction based on body mass then they flippin' well have to say so BEFORE they board the plane. If they find out when he's sitting down that they want him to buy another seat, too... freaking .. bad.

As to Mr. Smith being obese, yeah that is a problem. Obese people are one of the few demographics which are still mocked as a rule. They are perceived to be sloppy, stupid, failures to some degree, et cetera, all because they are overweight. It's the New Age replacement for Racism, you get to insult someone for their weight and treat them as sub-human just because it makes you feel superior to do so. There's all kinds of behavior that's protected, but some folks just assume that a fat person is worth less than someone else and should be attacked and insulted, simply because the culture lets that happen.

I don't especially like Kevin Smith, but in this case he is completely right. He bought his ticket just the same as anyone else and has the right to fly in his seat until he arrives; if there is a problem with space, let's not forget that Southwest Airlines chose to make the seats chihuahau-size, and to ignore the problem until it was flight time. Let's also not forget that this bogus policy ignores the other things that annoy passengers, like the people who don't bathe before the flight, the people who insist on bothering you with stories you don't want to hear, or the guy who gets a little more room by leaning back in his seat and breaking your knees.

There is not an airline on the planet right now that can defend themselves on this point. The best thing Southwest could do would be to admit that they were 100% wrong, and start from scratch to actually provide a service that treated their paying customers as something better than roadkill.

Thanks for the lively discussion here, Doc Epador, Jay and DJ.

Mr Fat Ass appears to have an ego as big as his rear end.

Apparently, SWA has a problem because there is an inconsistency in enforcement of their Customer Of Size policy. I fly SWA exclusively, and I have been seated more than once next to a passenger that has oozed over into my seat. Many, many passengers on SWA have. This indicates that the SWA personnel allow a COS to fly in a single seat when he/she should have been required to buy the 2nd, physically necessary seat. They should universally enforce their Customer of Size policy.

Kevin Smith says he usually buys 2 seats when he flies SW for his own "personal comfort", but that he fits in one seat. I've seen him and I don't believe he could confine his girth to the 17 inch wide seat. No way.

I don't think anyone should be humiliated, and certainly not an obese person especially because they get so many insults hurled at them walking down the street just for being. I am not skinny, I am average sized. I fit fine in SW plane seats. I'm guessing most people would fit fine in a SW plane seat. It's a very sticky situation, and I don't know the best way to deal with it.

People who do not fit or cannot contain their body within the confines of a standard ECONOMY fair airplane seat should be required to purchase more room for themselves. It is very humiliating to be the person next to them who is forced into having the flesh (often sweaty) of a STRANGER pushed against them for a period of hours. That is not fair either.

But I wouldn't be dissing SW airlines. I am rarely late, I have never had my luggage lost, and you cannot beat their fares. I think their employees on the whole are friendly and fun. Like I said, I fly SWA exclusively.