You guys screwed up, SWA; why's it so hard to own up to it? Now I'm gonna carry this Too Fat To Fly sh*t around like herpes for the rest of my life, and it was never even true. So, (Southwest rep) Linda: I appreciate the effort you made, the time you spent with me on the phone, and the work you put into this. You, too, were a reasonable cat during our conversation. But wrapping up with a repeating of that 2 seat policy (the one THAT HAS NO BEARING ON MY CASE) is a reminder that you guys haven't learned anything: you're still blaming it on the Fatty. Still, you tried. Thank you for that, Linda -- and for being human. Southwest, I appreciate you refunding my airfare. But if you're not gonna admit I wasn't Too Fat To Fly, then I'll cover it.
By now, you've probably heard the story about director Kevin Smith being thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight for allegedly being "too fat to fly". There are a few sad aspects to this saga, but for me what it really comes down to is that this is merely the latest example of an airline (and an industry) that's completely out of control. I like to kid myself now and again that airlines used to be about customer service. In reality, of course, this has never been true, but never moreso since 9.11. Mohamed Atta and his compadres freed airlines to unabashedly treat customers like cattle, inconveniences to be tolerated only insofar as they impact their fragile bottom lines.
Southwest's idiocy, of course, was in taking on someone with a degree of celebrity and the willingness to use that celebrity to broadcast what he feels is a legitimate injustice. In an era when one can toss one's anger to the four winds...or, as the kids like to call it, Twitter, why would any business as precariously financially positioned as an airline do something so blatantly, flagrantly discriminatory as what they did to Kevin Smith? And it's not as if Smith is the first and only passenger to be subjected to this sort of discriminatory silliness.
As you might imagine, Southwest is now scrambling to cover their tracks, but Smith is having none of it. It's really all pretty silly, but I applaud Smith for telling his side of the story and refusing to play nice. If Smith truly is "too fat to fly", then there are a lot more Americans in similar straits. And it's not as if Southwest, or any airline, is in a position where they can afford to gratuitously piss off customers. It's not bad enough that airlines are now charging for everything short of using the onboard restrooms (and just wait, that's probably not far off); now they're actively working on aggravating a significant portion of the American flying public. I may have been a History major, but even to me that seems like a business model with a limited chance of success.
For some reason, airlines arbitrarily think that a passenger should be able to squeeze their frame into a 17" seat. I'm not a small person (6', 230 lbs., depending on the day), and I'm not comfortable in an airline seat. I'm by no means "fat", regardless of how you or anyone else happens to define the term. If I experience this sort of discomfort with a 38" waist, what of those large than me? If the dimensions of Americans are changing (and yes, I recognize that this is not a good and/or healthy trend), then it should be incumbent upon airlines to adjust accordingly. Rather than changing how they do business and the spaces they attempt to force us into, airlines like Southwest insist on forcing us to fit them.
I detest Southwest Airlines. The irreverence of their flight staff masks the reality that their planes are little more than cattle cars minus the straw and the cow patties. Not that other airlines are much better, of course. Flying has never been a truly pleasant experience, but since 9.11, it has gradually devolved into something truly dehumanizing. Unfortunately, it's still the fast mode of travel in most cases, and it's not like one can easily drive to Tokyo or London. We may be a captive audience when we're on an airplane. It would be nice if airlines didn't take advantage of that reality and treat us like captives. After all, we are paying for the "privilege" of flying on their plane, no? Would it be too much to expect something vaguely resembling customer service? Apparently so.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
