By FITSNews || You are NOT free to move around the country, Kevin Smith.
The famous Hollywood director – known to legions of fans as “Silent Bob” – was booted off a Southwest Airlines flight Sunday because he was too fat.
Wait … let’s rephrase that … he was determined to be a “customer of size” who was too large for his seat.
From Southwest’s blog (yes Southwest Airlines has a blog):
Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest. He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby. As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy. Our pilots are responsible for the Safety and comfort of all Customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight. Our Employees explained why the decision was made, accommodated Mr. Smith on a later flight, and issued him a $100 Southwest travel voucher for his inconvenience.
Southwest goes on to say that it has a “Customer of Size” policy requiring overweight passengers to buy two seats. If the flight is undersold, they refund the price of one of the tickets.
Or something like that …
The 39-year-old director – whose films Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Zack and Miri Make A Porno, among others, are comedy cult classics – has been anything but “silent” about the situation, providing literally dozens of updates on his Twitter page about what happened.
“I was right: I fit in that seat,” he says in one Tweet. ” But I can’t risk not complying: I’m more afraid of AirFeds.”
Frankly, if we got booted from an airplane for being too fat, we wouldn’t Tweet about it once – let alone dozens of times. In fact, we’d be praying to God nobody else Tweeted about it either.
The real story here?
WTF is a famous Hollywood director doing on a low-fare airline in the first place?
WEB EXTRA
Southwest “Customer of Size” Policy
By Pat Hendrix February 15, 2010 at 6:15 pm
I can’t say I disagree with the policy. I was flying back from Cape Town and this Dikembe Mutombo looking mofo was sprawled in my seat for 17 hours. I nearly had a psychotic episode that would have required extensive tasering by a Sky Marshall. Holy crap there’s not enough alcohol on a Delta flight to compensate for an adjacent fatass, no offense Sic Billy.
By Recovering Lobbyist February 15, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Never mind this guy’s problem. I for one have become frustrated with flying. Flying has become an inconvenience. I for one drive anywhere if I can get there in a day. Takes about the same amount of time as flying, and I actually arrive more rested than when I fly.
By Liberty For Me February 15, 2010 at 11:34 pm
PAT>>>>Since when is Dikembe Mutombo fat?? Are we now charging extra for tall people??…Sounds kind of just racist to me..What happened to all that liberal feel good??
By sid February 15, 2010 at 11:53 pm
If their decisions are based on who is taking up more space, then it should apply equally to the very tall. Personally, I don’t care nearly as much if someone really tall and thin is next to me as I do when it’s someone really wide. And it’s not just fat people. There are plenty of big, healthy people that are going to spread into my area on most planes. I’d love to see the formula airlines will have to come up with to try to avoid lawsuits.
By ginasc February 16, 2010 at 8:58 am
What really burns my butt is strange men that fall asleep on my shoulder and snore…we are not talking about my husband. Had a couple of women
who drooled…Just because I am small does not mean I not sitting there, hello….
By Mercy February 16, 2010 at 9:34 am
Can anyone clue us in as to what is the size of a seat in coach compared to the size of seats in first or business class? Aren’t those seats much larger? Back in the 1970s and 80s, wasn’t the size of every seat in a passenger plane larger? Has anyone taken into consideration that while the people of the nation are larger due to heavy carb and supersize me diets that the commercial airlines have cut as many corners as possible to make money for the execs and other paper pushers while the service has gotten worse and now intolerable since 2001. It’s fair enough that you don’t want someone sleeping, drooling on you or invading your space, but my question is weren’t the seats formerly bigger even when the national average-sized person was smaller? If the size of the seat has been reduced to save money, we should all thank Silent Bob for bringing attention to this corner-cutting by skinflint airlines. Customer service is a thing of the past and if the size has been reduced, it’s time that the customer base start getting respect from the airline service industry. Whatever happened to good customer service?
By Doc September 11, 2011 at 2:50 pm
That is not Kevin Smith…
That is this dude, http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=786365028
By J.R. September 11, 2011 at 2:55 pm
UH guys you got the wrong pic thats not Kevin Smith.
By gary September 11, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Yep… Not Kevin… IT’S ME!!!!
By amaya September 11, 2011 at 4:14 pm
That’s not Kevin Smith you idiots. Glad to know you put as much research identifying Kevin Smith with a picture of a cosplayer as you probably put into your articles. Good job.
By codeword September 11, 2011 at 4:52 pm
yeah yeah, so they chose to use the better looking silent bob look-a-like. who can blame them? lol
By Gary September 11, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Codeword…. I don’t know if I know you or not, but thanks!