@ThatKevinSmith Goes Overboard: Michael David
Last night Kevin Smith decided he was wronged by Southwest Air and took a hatchet to them via Twitter. Apparently, from his side of the story, he was asked to purchase a second seat because of his size, after already being seated. I have empathy for the embarrassment he may have felt and not being there I can’t say if it was handled properly or not, but I do agree with the policy of having people who are too large for one seat pay for two. When I fly with my son, who is still eligible to ride on a lap, I buy a seat for him. Why? Because I feel it is completely inconsiderate to have someone sit next to me and possibly deal with myself or child invading the space he or she paid for. About two years ago on a flight from Vegas to Philly my wife was stuck next to a woman who put up the armrest and was partly on her seat. How is that okay? We paid just as much as that woman yet she was stealing part of the seat we paid for. Yes she STOLE it. She did not pay for the space she was using, we did. I understand that this is a delicate thing for airlines to handle and you could easily argue that the seats should be bigger, which would raise fares for every one, but it doesn’t mean that the airlines are wrong to have a policy based on size. I don’t care about the reason someone is overweight and I do not think any less of them, but it does not give someone the right to take away the space another person has paid for. The rant Kevin Smith went on last night was understandable, I’m sure he was upset, but just because his feelings were hurt does not make him correct in his argument.
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Actually, you’re wrong. He wasn’t asked to purchase a second seat.
He was flying back to LA after giving a presentation in NorCal. However he was able to get on an earlier flight standby.
It is this flight that the gate attendants allowed him to board. He was able to board, and according to him, he was able to sit down, belt himself in without a seatbelt extender, and was able to bring down both armrests, fulfilling Southwest Air’s objective standard for not needing to purchase a second seat.
Despite being cleared at the gate to board and already being in his seat, he was told to leave the flight as a safety concern. He wasn’t told to buy a second seat. He was simply thrown off the flight after already it was implied that it was okay for him to board with just a single seat.
He’s not arguing about the SWA policy about buying a second seat. He’s arguing that by SWA’s own objective standard, he didn’t need a 2nd seat (armrests down, no extender). (It’s like saying if Airline X says that you can check in two bags for free, checking in and boarding, and midflight, the FA gives you notice that you’re being billed $X for checking in you bags. You’re being penalized even though nothing you did violates the airlines official policy)
Bottom line, if he so grossly violated the standard, why was he allowed to board in the first place?
He gives his full take on what happened on his free SModcast and I’m about to listen to it. I’ll post notes on that here once I’m done.
Haven’t listened to the SModcast yet. I just saw on my TweetDeck that Kevin Smith wrote a series of tweets this morning giving clarification. I’ll put them all together for clarity, but they began at about 630AM this morning PST.
@ThatKevinSmith:
“Had three seats/whole row for me & Jen. She skipped SF, so I went solo checked in and was given the 2 tix there & return 2 (for that p.m.). Going out, even with 2 tix, I only sat in one seat, sleeping against window, w/empty seat between me and follow passenger. Coming back would have been the same, at 7pm. But I got to the airport early enough to try to bump-up my flight to 5:20 - a practice @SouthwestAir does often. I was told 5:20 flight was packed, but I could go Standby.
They sent me to gate. Told lady whole story, and she said there wouldn’t be two seats on that earlier flight. I said I only needed one seat & that I didn’t buy an extra seat because I’m fat (which I am), but because I’m anti-social and didn’t want to sit next to someone & possibly have to make convo (in person, I’m very shy). She said she understood. I was issued the solo ticket.
I get on the plane: open seat in the front row. Put my bag away, the sit between two ladies. As I’m about to buckle my extender-less seatbelt, the woman who issued the ticket to me appeared in the doorway of the plane, came over to me and said the Captain said I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit there because I was a safety risk. I asked for clarification and was given none (also asked “Please don’t do this” but that, too, fell on deaf ears. Ladies on either side said I wasn’t a problem. SWA-lady said arm-rests the decider. Arm-rests come down, and voila! I’m legit! I’ve passed the stinkin’ arm-rest-test. And still, the lady asks me to get up and come with her off the plane.
I get up without a fuss at all, quietly grab my bag, make eye contact with a fellow Fatty who was praying he’d pass, and leave. You think I wanna fuck around on an airplane? I was right: I fit in that seat. But I can’t risk not complying: I’m more afraid of AirFeds.
Via @spacemanfoo “CNN makes it sound @SouthwestAir punished u for not purchasing 2 tickets which u usually do.True?” No. Tweeted earlier.”
—-
And from an earlier series of tweets from his this morning:
(551AM PST)
“”What exactly do you hope to acheive from the continued bitching?” Dude… THEY THREW ME OFF WITHOUT PROPER CAUSE. I passed their stupid test and still, they pulled me. But fuck’em: I flew home in ONE seat (even though I had two), with the arm rest down, just to prove a point.”
(559AM PST)
“Via CluelessOldHag “You’re big, you’re rich, pay for the 2nd seat and stop griping.” You haven’t been following this story at all, have you?”
I dunno, something about this story doesn’t add up. Airlines don’t just ask you to leave cause you may be a little big. I fly Southwest ALL the time and I’ve seen my share of “big people” that were let on and flew just fine.
I’m starting to think this might have been a personal vendetta against Smith by the flight attendants who hate his movies or something lol.
Like I said I wasn’t there and my comment is more on the policy and what I thought was a completely over the top reaction. If he was wronged he has every right to bitch, I just thought it began to border on whining. Also it is his side we are getting and not a full and complete account. Even if he fit between the armrests does not mean he wasn’t impeding another passengers space. The policy is too vague and with seat sizes being small I can see where problems would occur. The pilot is in charge. That is the way it has to be, but that doesn’t mean the decision shouldn’t be reviewed by SWA. I have flown SWA quite a bit and have never had any customer service issues.
huh. so, he knew they wanted him to buy two seats, bought two seats, found out there was one seat available on an earlier flight, lied to get onboard, and is now angry that he got kicked off?
Where did he lie to get onboard?
i might be confused. did he have two tickets for his original flight because he knew his size was an issue? or just for fun?
i was under the impression from most of the articles i’ve read that he had two tickets for the first flight because of his weight issue. he then tells the lady at the gate that he’s got two tickets because he’s shy.
if he did know about the policy and had previously purchased two tickets, then he shouldnt be surprised that he got kicked off. re-reading his posts, it seems like he’s claiming that he just bought an extra ticket to not have to sit next to anyone. in that case, sounds like the pilot was being a jerk.
I think he had two seats for the first flight because he didn’t want to have to talk to anyone who may be sitting next to him and his wife was originally supposed to go, so he actually had 3 seats…the extra one was to “save” and ensure someone didn’t sit next to him
because it’s more fun if we argue (and generates more traffic)… do you think he purchases extra tickets habitually because he’s afraid that he’s on the cusp of violating the one-seat rule? i mean, this is the dude who fessed up to breaking his friend’s toilet when he sat on it.
would it be better if he had been denied in the first place? i would say yes. yes, it would have.
He said he always buys 2 seats because he likes the space, but that he is not required to do so.
I don’t know about this whole situation though. Seems very shady on Southwest’s behalf.
Got around to listening to his SModcast. And I’ve got around 30 minutes left.
But Southwest really does have some explaining to do. The way KS explains it, the gate attendant “Suzanne” told KS that he was being taken off by the pilot for a “safety issue”. Once he was off the flight, Suzanne kept avoiding answering why he was taken off the flight and wasn’t helpful.
About an hour after he was taken off and after he’d already started tweeting, a Southwest manager (Cesar) came up to him (who he’d talked to after the gate after Suzanne wasn’t being helpful, the same manager who offered a $100 voucher but KS declined) and basically said that KS shouldn’t have been taken off the flight and the way they did it was wrong as well.
Sorry, the manager’s name was Eric. Cesar must’ve been stuck in my head after looking at the Terry O’Quinn pictures right before I posted.
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