Oh Southwest Airlines… You make yourself look good by staying away from those pesky baggage charges, then you go and make yourself look ridiculous by kicking a famous actor off your plane because the captain decided he was “a safety risk” for being too fat to fly.
Bad, bad move.
The actor in question is Kevin Smith (you may know him as Silent Bob). He admits that he’s a bit of a fatty, but he also told his Twitter followers that he had no problems putting both armrests down. So, once the Southwest PR team wakes up tomorrow morning, I’d love to hear their side of the story, and how they decide who is entitled to fly on their planes, and what their definition of “safety risk” is. Seriously, I can’t wait for the PR spin on this one.
See, Kevin Smith has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, who all get to read just how unfairly he was treated, and how the airline tried to make everything better with a $100 voucher.
Of course, this is not the first time the airline has managed to get in the news with stupid decisions by its staff – last time they made the news, an overweight passenger was barred from flying, and missed the funeral of his uncle.
UPDATE: Southwest airlines issued a public apology this afternoon, along with their side of the story. Sadly, their page won’t load right correctly now, so we have posted their response here for you to read.
As you can see, there is indeed another side to the story. That said – Mr. Smith confirmed that he could sit with the armrests down and without the use of a seatbelt extender, so despite their statement, there still remains the issue that someone at their airline decided he was too large.
