Kevin Smith and the Customers of Size

The passenger cabin of a Southwest Airlines Bo...
Image via Wikipedia

Kevin Smith is well known for being an outspoken individual. Professionally, he is a well known actor/director/comedian/writer/podcaster.

Southwest is the classic low-cost carrier with a long-standing reputation for good customer service, and a simple, consistent product. They also have a long-standing policy for “Customers of Size.” They are not alone in having such a policy, which states if the armrests cannot come down, you must buy another seat, which will be refunded if the plane isn’t full.

We hate the debate over large customers, be they big, tall, or both. It never ends. And it invariably gets into an argument about the obesity issue in America. We’ve often said the only fair thing to do is size the seats to the statistically average American and accept that some people, many through no fault of their own, don’t fit the average. Airline seats, as we’ve mentioned before, are narrower than a standard office chair, for example. We think this is an industry problem, not a Southwest one.

We tried to stay out of it this time. But then Kevin Smith had to podcast about it. And that got our ire up on the issue. He does not seem to have any sense of what Southwest Airlines is about, or the state of the industry in general.

For one, he referred to Southwest as an Air Bus. We assume he was calling it like a bus in the air, not like the manufacturer Airbus, as Southwest is exclusively Boeing 737. This is obviously a man who has never experienced airlines like Skybus, Ryanair, and a large amount of discount carriers that make Southwest look luxurious by comparison. He refers to all of the Southwest Airlines employees as disinterested and apathetic, when they consistently get kudos for their service.

Mr. Smith admitted that in his travels he often buys two seats, as “Southwest is dirt cheap,” and we appreciate he recognizes this in an age with such downward pressure on fares. But, Smith recognizes that his comfort would be impacted by being limited to a single seat, regardless of whether or ot he could fit in a single seat.  He admits he buys Business Select so he can board first.

He was ticketed for a later flight, and was on standby for the flight in question. He also recounted how an employee asked if he was a revenue passenger. Boarding as a standby, it was quite possible he was travelling on airline pass, otherwise known as non-revenue travel. Mr. Smith misinterpreted the phrase.

From his statement, the gate agent implied he was a Customer of Size, and later boarded the plane after he had sat down to tell him he must be removed in an oddly speedy amount of time. The pacing of events in his story seems rather odd, if you listen to it. The most suspicious thing is his insistence that he was polite through the entire ordeal, which seems inconsistent with his public personality.

However, we do not think Southwest apologized to Kevin Smith for his experience merely because he is Kevin Smith. They are very proactive and responsive to complaints. They set aside a specific blog post because of the news it was getting, which any organization would do. Conversely, regardless of what happens, there is no good way to handle this issue.

Yes, they have a policy, and they have had it for years. It isn’t a secret and they do try to handle it with as much delicacy as possible, but sometimes there is no good way to handle it, and some people are better at it than others. The advice we have for Southwest Airlines is to find ways to better enforce their policy, since they are not going to change the basic tenets of the policy. Be uniform, and try to avoid giving anyone the feeling they are being discriminated against. They have always been most visible of all airlines in enforcing it.

They may have handled it wrong. They may have been wrong to remove him from the plane, or they may not have been. It would hardly be the first time we felt an airline provided bad customer service, but we’ll side with them over Kevin Smith. He admitted he is not looking for an apology, he is looking to “scorch Earth,” and even compared them to Hitler.

Honestly, listening to his podcast was an hour and a half we wish we could have back. Writing about it is even harder.

Related articles by Zemanta
  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

38 Tweets

26 Responses to “ Kevin Smith and the Customers of Size ”

  1. David Parker Brown on February 15, 2010 at 12:36 PM

    What really got me is his comments about how airlines just throw in as many seats as possible to make as much money as possible. Sigh. If customers didn’t demand the cheapest tickets possible, airlines wouldn’t need to have crammed seating. If you want more room you can either #1 Pay more to get First/Business class or #2 Buy a second seat.

    David

  2. Rob on February 15, 2010 at 2:01 PM

    As a regualr customer of size, Smith should know he doesn’t need a Business Select fare to board early. Southwest allows customers of size to preboard:

    http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_qa.html

  3. Ree Griffith on February 15, 2010 at 2:30 PM

    Explain the safety concern to me when
    1) he boarded and left under his own strength
    2) he fit within the armrests
    3) he fastened his regulation, “if he’s too big for it, why is it that big” seatbelt WITHOUT an extender…
    and
    4) he obviously wasn’t encroaching on the women he was between.

    Big men are quite capable of maneuvering in confined spaces.
    Call it what it is. If this was a non-rev issue, he shouldn’t have been allowed on the plane. If he got on the plane and was crowbarred into his seat and had to be winched out to be removed, then OK, I’ll call that a safety issue.
    Don’t bag on this man for his tweetering or twitting or blogging or whatever…ANYONE ELSE that gets humiliated like this would do the same; some would even sue.

    Airline personnel need to remember that most passengers, even if they fly A LOT, are not at the same comfort level as the pilots and flight attendants…that plane is your office or second home; to the rest of us it’s more like a LONG AMUSEMENT RIDE…we are your guests, and are at your mercy and discretion from the moment we set foot in your airport to the moment we leave from our destination’s airport.
    BTW, I’ve been crammed between two much fatter fatties on SWA and other airlines…uncomfortable, yes. Annoying, YES. Did I expect them to be removed? Not once.

  4. Robert L on February 15, 2010 at 3:54 PM

    I’m a longtime SWA customer ( and I’ll continue to be be one ).

    The facts of this situation are pretty simple. A SWA customer sits in seat and then was told he was a safty risk and asked to leave. The ONLY valid argument is was he or wasn’t he too big to occupy one seat.

    According to the SWA written policy ( http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_qa.html ) they state:

    “The armrest is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size”

    Mr Smith stated he showed the flight crew he fit in the seat with the armrest down and did not require a belt extender. If this was true why did they force him to leave if he complied with SWA policy???

  5. crispi on February 15, 2010 at 5:09 PM

    So here is a question. Customers “of a size” – can you please state, specifically, what size that would be? Maybe clarify whether you can be “of that size” even if you fit between the arms and are able to buckle your seat belt without an extension? I’d really like to know.

  6. porkrinds on February 15, 2010 at 6:47 PM

    “The most suspicious thing is his insistence that he was polite through the entire ordeal, which seems inconsistent with his public personality.”

    So when confronted by this situation, he should act like an asshole because that’s your impression of him?

    Classy.

    Here’s what Kevin Smith tweeted about the situation this morning. I combined the tweets for easier reading.

    @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.”

  7. Too Fat to Fly? Personally, it should be all about the numbers... and I have a solution | pridebook.com on February 27, 2010 at 12:52 PM

    [...] Kevin Smith and the Customers of Size (flightwisdom.com) [...]

Additional comments powered by BackType

Subscribe

Follow Us on Twitter…

Menu