Will the “too fat to fly” kerfluffle hurt Southwest?

The blogosphere and twitter have been filled with with the “horror story” of filmmaker, Kevin Smith, being asked to leave a full Southwest flight because he was “oversized.” PR experts are sending out missives noting this is a PR flareup and that it may damage the Southwest brand.

My take: Southwest will survive and the millions of average-sized passengers that it serves will be quietly pleased that they are not subjected to sharing half of their seat with an oversized passenger.

It only takes one trip in coach seated beside an XXXL-sized passenger to make an average guy or gal far less tolerant of another person’s size. I have suffered on two such transatlantic flights where the plane was full and so was half of the seat which I had purchased.

My first such flight was overnight from Boston to Amsterdam when I was assigned one of the three middle seats in an old Northwest DC-10. Smack in the middle seat was a massive man who could put the armrests down but whose upper torso spilled into the seats on either side of him. I asked the flight attendants for help or a reassignment, but they had no solutions. It was a long, long flight for all of the passengers in that row.

My second experience was returning from Spain to Boston when I was seated beside another XXXL seatmate. this time I was sitting in an aisle seat and could lean away, but the experience was less than pleasurable, however, I endured.

I was uncomfortable and felt that I had been cheated out of what I had paid for. But, I had no recourse. Today, if I saw Mr. Smith walking down the aisle, I would pray like mad that he was not getting ready to sit down next to me.

I’m not the only one. Only yesterday, I heard from a passenger who had a similar experience flying on JetBlue from Boston to Orlando. He is not a particularly small person, but he was seated next to a massive passenger who took up half of his seat. When he protested to the JetBlue flight attendants they sypathized, but could do nothing but file a complaint after the flight. Here is part of his story:

I was stuck, so much so that during the flight I had to get up because the outside armrest was killing my kidneys. To my good fortune the flight attendants were sympathetic but both agreed it was a touchy subject. Upon landing, after three hours of sitting half on my seat and half in the aisle, I went looking for the customer service desk, only to be told that it ” wasn’t the responsibility of the airline” and I could log my complaint online at jetblue.com

I know this “a touchy subject” and that it is not politically correct nor is it sensitive to the size-challenged passengers, but their disregard for others has to stop.

Southwest apologized to the filmmaker for his bad experience and responded in their NutsAboutSouthwest blog.

Southwest instituted our Customer of Size policy more than 25 years ago. The policy requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling. This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator. Most, if not all, carriers have similar policies, but unique to Southwest is the refunding of the second seat purchased (if the flight does not oversell) which is greater than any revenue made (full policy can be found here). The spirit of this policy is based solely on Customer comfort and Safety. As a Company committed to serving our Customers in Safety and comfort, we feel the definitive boundary between seats is the armrest. If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.

Personally, I am pleased that at least Southwest Airlines has had the courage to take a stand on this difficult oversized-passenger issue. (Though, I’m not sure even their policies would have helped me with either of my experiences.)

Southwest’s concern for the overwhelming majority of their customers is appropriate. Their solution of having XXXL passengers purchase an extra seat that is refundable should the plane not be full, is fair. United Airlines has enforced a similar policy and Air France has recently made the second seat refundable for oversized fliers following the Southwest policy.

The other airlines should make their policies clear as well. Both the average passengers and the oversized fliers deserve to know the rules.

Speaking of that, maybe we need an empirical rule such as passengers weighing over 250 lbs. must pay a pound surcharge and will be given an additional seat. That might help. We pay for baggage by the pound. At a certain point it is unfair to the mass of passengers to subsidize the overweight.

Perhaps the person stuck in the middle, more than anyone else, is the poor Southwest flight attendant that had the unpleasant task of speaking with Mr. Smith and informing him that he needed to get off the plane. No one wants to be put in that position.

Note: For those who are overweight because of certified medical conditions causing a disability, airlines should be required to offer modified seating under the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

FYI here are the current rules, or non-rules (from the Southwest site), regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Interstate airline travel is specifically excluded from Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by Section 12141(2). Airline travel is instead covered by the Air Carrier Access Act, 49 U.S.C. 1374(c) and the regulations implementing the Act issued by the Department of Transportation as 14 CFR Part 382, et seq. The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) preceded the ADA, and Congress excluded air carriers and other air transportation services from the scope of ADA. As regulated under 14 CFR §382.38 Seating accommodations (i) “Carriers are not required to furnish more than one seat per ticket or to provide a seat in a class of service other than the one the passenger has purchased.”

Photo of Kevin Smith