Kevin Smith Booted From Southwest Airlines Flight for Being Too Fat

Film director and actor Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight after being told he was too fat.

Smith originally purchased two tickets for his fat ass, but decided to go standby in order to board an earlier flight. He boarded the plane and was seated, but according to SWA there weren’t two seats side-by-side readily available for him. Smith was then informed he would have to be bumped to a later flight, where two seats would be waiting.

Since then Smith has been on an absolute rampage on Twitter. Hurling F-bombs and swearing that he wasn’t too fat to fly. Dozens and dozens of them. In fact, he really hasn’t stopped tweeting about it since it happened. He is STILL going off about it.

Kevin Smith’s Twitter

Some examples of his posts/rants:

Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like “Please don’t tell…”

Via @pobenschain “you get what you pay for. Cheaper airline = sh**tier service” I nominate that as the new, honest tagline of @SouthwestAir.

And not just ANY paying customer: a paying customer who fit between the arm rests & was able to buckle his seat belt w/o an extender. TRUTH!

Southwest Airlines blogged about the incident naming the blog post, “Not So Silent Bob”. Cheeky, indeed.

You’ve read about these situations before. 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. 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.

You know, I generally like Kevin Smith, but he really is coming across as quite the ass. A funny ass, but still, an ass. I DO understand his frustration with Southwest, I mean, why did they let him board in the first place if two seats weren’t available? I can’t help but wonder though, just how “comfortably” did he fit into that seat? You notice he posted a photo of his head only. No body shot, because it might show him spilling over the seat? He swears no, but I am unconvinced.

His tweets are scathing too. He is really kind of acting like a spoiled brat with some of his unnecessarily venomous tweets:

Dear F**ktarded PR-Challenged Fatty-Haters at @SouthwestAir: Your “apology” blog is insulting, redacted bullsh*t. FULL details in two hours.

And then he even laid into an ABC producer for trying to get ahold of him for an interview:

@ElisaABCNews “I’m a producer for ABC NEWS, Good Morning America. Can you give me a call” Why? Do you know @Oprah?

Not cool. Yeah Kevin, you might be pissed at SWA but really, do you have to act like such a twat? (He has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, so yeah, a lot of people saw it.)

Smith’s latest post (as I write this) on Twitter is challenging SWA to bring a row of the exact same seats to The Daily Show and he will show everyone that he fits “comfortably” into one. He said, “If I don’t fit, I’ll donate $10k to charity of your choice. But when I do (& buckle the belt as well)? 1) You admit you lied. 2) Change your policy, or at least re-train your staff to be a lot more human & a lot less corporate when they pull a poor girl off the plane & shame her.” (Apparently they did something similar to a female.)

So, I guess I am really confused as to how this all happened. If Smith is right, and he does fit comfortably in a seat, who was the jerk who demanded he exit the plane? SWA is blaming the Captain, but that’s because no one knows who the sorry bastard is. Easy way out. However, I highly doubt the Captain had anything to do with it.

Honestly, I have always loved Southwest Airlines. Seriously. Their flight attendants are usually THE friendliest of any airline I have ever flown. That’s why I find it so shocking that one of them would just inconvenience a passenger like this UNLESS the person really was a safety hazard.

What are your thoughts on this controversy? Do you think Kevin is being a bitch about it all – or do you think someone at Southwest Airlines was having a bad day?