I'm not sure I'm with Kevin on this one. I believe he claimed that he wasn't making the person next to him physically uncomfortable, but who's to say that was really the case? It's not unreasonable for any airline to be concerned about the comfort of their passengers.

Now, I know Kevin said he normally buys 2 seats, which is thoughtful of him. But it also shows that he knows 1 seat isn't enough room for him, so I don't know that he has any right to complain.

Is there a reason to not fit in the chair?

Right, the airline was doing him a favor by trying to let him fly out early on stand by, but the stand by only had one seat. So what this is all about is that he was already seated THEN they told him they couldn't accommodate him because there wasn't 2 avalible seats. Ultimately, what Mr. smith is mad about is movement, which is why he needs to seats to start with.

Boo hoo, cry me a river.

Kevin Smith is too fat to fly unless he buys two seats, which he normally does. In this case he wanted to get an earlier flight, was put on standby and the airport staff neglected to check if the flight had two neighbouring free seats. It did not, and he boarded the plane. When the crew realised this was going to be a problem, he was asked to leave.

Southwest admitted this was a mistake, and apologized for it. But Kevin Smith conveniently omits the real problem in this video, and goes on for 3 minutes about how he's now too fat to fly with Southwest.

And yes, he's too fat. I for one am glad that some airlines won't let someone that big fly using only one seat.

Moral of Story: Don't piss off fat people who have lots of money and nearly everyone on the Internets listens to.

Do any of you people know Kevin Smith? He isn't that fat. He fits fine in one seat. He buys two to give him more of a separation from the rest of humanity. He's rich, but frugal. He picked a cheap airline and then bought two seats. This is not a fat man. Look at him in the video!

They are really looking out for him. Drop the weight you festively plump bastard.

I'm tall, but not extreme percentile tall -- about 6'2". When I fly, some fat (like, really fat) person overflowing into my seat is *way* down on my concerns list, which goes a little something like this:

1. Some inconsiderate bastard in the seat in front of me decides that they will be a little more comfortable by reclining their headrest to a position about 3 inches in front of my nose, which leaves me short on breathing room AND legroom. Reclining my own seat relieves the breathing room issue but does so at the expense of the person behind me (which I hate to do), and the lack of leg/knee room remains.

2. Some old woman or young guy decides that riding in a cramped cattle car is the perfect time to wear a full gallon of perfume/cologne. I'm pretty highly anti-'fragrances' in general, and any prolonged exposure to even light applications of perfume or cologne tend to give me a headache. So, being inches away from someone that smells like they bathe in the shit puts me into a "HULK SMASH!" mood pretty quick.

3. Screaming baby. I understand that it can't be avoided sometimes. I know that pressure changes in the cabin affect younger kids eardrums and sinuses in ways that can be painful -- I used to have the same problem. But the parents that immediately give it up as a lost cause and give you dirty looks like "yeah, I know my kid is producing more decibels of sound than the jet engine outside, but I'm not even going to make an effort to try to calm them down" bother me.

...

4,016. Being seated next to a bloated sack of protoplasm.

They have a fat policy. Sure fat people may be able to get their behind in a seat, but then their other parts droop over into the neighboring seat. That is simply not fair to the other person. Many airlines make people who cannot fit between the armrest to purchase another seat. SouthWest goes a little further in that if they find out that the adjacent seat would have been empty anyways they refund the extra seat. That is totally a fair policy.

Airlines sell seats, that is their unit of measurement. They cannot sell less than a seat for very skinny people. Therefore they have to choose something that is fair to all passengers. I think the standard of "your whole body fitting between the two armrests" is a fair standard.

Debating on the size of the seats is another issue. Airlines are constanlty trying to cram us in smaller spaces. That is a different argument though.

They do have a fat policy, and he met the requirements to fly. He put down both his armrests comfortably. He was removed from the plane with larger people left on.

I'm pretty amazed at the attitude in most of these comments.

Whatever your stance, I think we can all agree that SWA has bought themselves a world of pain...the old meme of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" just ain't so.

I expect to see an apology from them in the next day or two.

I don't get the resentment here towards overweight people. The airlines, all airlines, have been squeezing us tighter and tighter into those cabins for years. On some flights you can't even extend the food tray anymore. Add to this all the restrictions on luggage and the "dog and pony show" security measures we deal with and flying has become an absolute insult.

And now...in light of what the airlines have done to pack us in like cattle, you're going to blame the overweight guy next to you? That's absolutely absurd. Did the overweight guy shrink the seats when you weren't looking?

Southwest airlines is now selling a service that no longer 'serves' a significant portion of the population. How is that reasonable? Cost saving measures are understandable in this economic environment but if you redesign your product to the point that it no longer works, you've lost sight of the big picture.

To you protesters that say KS isn't fat, take a second to google a current pic. The man IS FAT! A video of his head belies the girth below. Check out this shot showing his thighs.

http://cache-03.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/1/2008/11/Rogen_Kevin_Fat_Guys.flv.jpg

There's no way in hell Kevin Smith is remotely close to being so big he'd bulge out of his seat. That's just ridiculous. Even if you do sit by someone morbidly obese I bet you're going to be more uncomfortable because Southwest gives you no space in front of you.

http://www.outofsightmedia.com/IMAGES/Caught-Today/0705-May-2007/070522_Kevin_Smith.jpg

Doesn't look that fat here. He likes to wear baggy clothes. Further, the picture you showed was the first hit not for "Kevin Smith", but for "Kevin Smith fat." Honestly, when I look at all the pictures, the one you presented is the outlier.

pic is from 2007, welcome to 2010

>> ^bmacs27:
http://www.outofsightmedia.com/IMAGES/Caught-Today/0705
-May-2007/070522_Kevin_Smith.jpg
Doesn't look that fat here. He likes to wear baggy clothes. Further, the picture you showed was the first hit not for "Kevin Smith", but for "Kevin Smith fat." Honestly, when I look at all the pictures, the one you presented is the outlier.

Yep, now he's 3 years fatter....

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
pic is from 2007, welcome to 2010
>> ^bmacs27:
http://www.outofsightmedia.com/IMAGES/Caught-Today/0705
-May-2007/070522_Kevin_Smith.jpg
Doesn't look that fat here. He likes to wear baggy clothes. Further, the picture you showed was the first hit not for "Kevin Smith", but for "Kevin Smith fat." Honestly, when I look at all the pictures, the one you presented is the outlier.

>> ^TheFreak:
I don't get the resentment here towards overweight people. The airlines, all airlines, have been squeezing us tighter and tighter into those cabins for years. On some flights you can't even extend the food tray anymore. Add to this all the restrictions on luggage and the "dog and pony show" security measures we deal with and flying has become an absolute insult.
And now...in light of what the airlines have done to pack us in like cattle, you're going to blame the overweight guy next to you? That's absolutely absurd. Did the overweight guy shrink the seats when you weren't looking?
Southwest airlines is now selling a service that no longer 'serves' a significant portion of the population. How is that reasonable? Cost saving measures are understandable in this economic environment but if you redesign your product to the point that it no longer works, you've lost sight of the big picture.


Amid skyrocketing fuel prices and planes becoming more expensive to fly because the population is increasingly overweight (studies have calculated the numbers), the airline industry constantly has companies going bankrupt.

If consumers want more space, they're free to fly on more expensive airlines or fly first class.

The basic rule of economics is that nothing's free.

^ 2010 mac world, baggy cloths

Tight shot, but showing some girth

A head shot

Of note, he is of "average" size for a big guy, but he scales horizontal a lot.

I've seen people MUCH larger than Kevin Smith squeezing into 1 seat and they don't get hassled.

>> ^Yogi:
I've seen people MUCH larger than Kevin Smith squeezing into 1 seat and they don't get hassled.


The fact that he NORMALLY gets 2 seats should indicate his actual girth. Remember, he isn't upset that he takes up 2 seats...he is mad that he was seated, then was told later there was only one seat for him not 2. In his tweets, he even comments on this, something to the effect that "Ya, I am the largest I have even been right now". The problem, once again, is that he has to get 2 seats. HIS problem is he sat down and had to stand up again...Hold on, Ill get my roomie to play some violin music.

I wish he'd stop acting like such a baby about the whole thing. Say your piece and move on. quit whining about it. It's like this one time I told my wife she looked sort of like a decomposing donkey and for DAYS all I heard was "oh, I can't make your dinner due to my DECOMPOSING DONKEY hooves" or "well I guess I won't bother taking a shower since I'm just a smelly DECOMPOSING DONKEY." Get over it

Someone has the fact wrong. He was not unhappy that two seats weren't available--he was unhappy that he was seated , in one seat, and then ejected. There is more than one reason for buying two seats.

My best friend is bigger than Kevin smith, I fly with him and his problem is more in leg room than anything else (and I'm the center seat, next to him).

What this thread says to me is that we at Videosift really don't like fatties. It makes me very curious about the girths behind the typing. Just how much self-loathing have we got here?

Airlines should just weigh you with your baggage and charge by the pound, like every other shipping company out there.

>> ^TerryF:
To you protesters that say KS isn't fat, take a second to google a current pic. The man IS FAT! A video of his head belies the girth below. Check out this shot showing his thighs.
http://cache-03.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/1/2008/11/
Rogen_Kevin_Fat_Guys.flv.jpg


that's an unfair pic. It's a side shot, he's angled away from the camera, foot us under his thigh,
and he's in a zip up sweater. That's not form fitting, they protrude past your girth giving the appearance of a much larger individual.

I'm not saying kevin smith isn't a big guy, he is, but not to the point of being kicked off an airline. If he had the second seat purchased, that's one thing and he should >not< have been kicked off.
Had the second seat been filled however, and it was filled, that's a bit of a different thing. Airlines calculate their fuel intake on an "Average Weight" system. They take the amount the baggage weighs, plus how many people are on the plane and multiply that by the "Average weight", and then calculate how much fuel they need to haul x amount of weight y distance.

Now, I'm not saying that the amount of fuel/weight ratio from kevin smith alone would've been so great the plane would crash, but that's the only legitimate reason I can come up with for them asking him to leave.

I don't think it was ever claimed that "any publicity is good publicity" applied to companies and brands. That aphorism applies to celbrities and other public figures who trade on mere notoriety. >> ^Stormsinger:
Whatever your stance, I think we can all agree that SWA has bought themselves a world of pain...the old meme of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" just ain't so.
I expect to see an apology from them in the next day or two.


I don't think it was ever claimed that "any publicity is good publicity" applied to companies and brands. That aphorism applies to celbrities and other public figures who trade on mere notoriety.

Furthermore "any publicity is good publicity" is not really a meme. I call meme abuse.

>> ^budzos:
I don't think it was ever claimed that "any publicity is good publicity" applied to companies and brands. That aphorism applies to celbrities and other public figures who trade on mere notoriety. >> ^Stormsinger:
Whatever your stance, I think we can all agree that SWA has bought themselves a world of pain...the old meme of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" just ain't so.
I expect to see an apology from them in the next day or two.

I don't think it was ever claimed that "any publicity is good publicity" applied to companies and brands. That aphorism applies to celbrities and other public figures who trade on mere notoriety.
Furthermore "any publicity is good publicity" is not really a meme. I call meme abuse.


Seconded.

You hear of a star in a movie, who recently did something that probably made the baby jesus cry. That's gonna draw a crowd just to see that person. You hear about an airline that screws over its passengers.. you're probably not going to spend 500+ bucks on a ticket to say "Hey, they were right, they DO suck"

Also, it's not a meme, it's a "saying"

>> ^Xax:
It's not unreasonable for any airline to be concerned about the comfort of their passengers.

Rubbish. If airlines were concerned about the confort of their passengers they wouldn't make the seats so cramped and have such little legroom in the first place, never mind other issues like food, inadequate air exchange, cramped toilets, narrow aisles... The balance between passenger comfort and company profit is weighed heavily toward the "company profit" end.

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:
>> ^Xax:
It's not unreasonable for any airline to be concerned about the comfort of their passengers.

Rubbish. If airlines were concerned about the confort of their passengers they wouldn't make the seats so cramped and have such little legroom in the first place, never mind other issues like food, inadequate air exchange, cramped toilets, narrow aisles... The balance between passenger comfort and company profit is weighed heavily toward the "company profit" end.

There are other factors that effect how comfortable passengers are, of course, but if other passengers are going to make customers uncomfortable, that's an easy thing to fix that doesn't cost the airline significantly.

There's a lot more to this story.

1. He was able to fit in the seat.
2. He could buckle his seat belt.
3. He could get his arm rests down.
4. (Here's the biggie) A Southwest employee didn't appreciate a sarcastic remark he made in the jetway.

It's a bit of a long listen, but it's highly entertaining, and he tells every detail that was skipped by the news.

http://www.smodcast.com/smods/smodcast106.html

Hey Southwest. Update your shit...it's been since the 70s. Look at Virgin and Jetblue. Now there's 2 airline companies I can get behind.

Well, I am 6'5" and flew twice every week for work for a few years, and I can tell you that seeing a fat person come down the aisle looking in my direction as (s)he is searching for the appropriate seat was one of my biggest concerns flying. If you check in online and use seatguru.com you can usually get some extra legroom in the right seats. Nothing you do, however, will alleviate the hell of sweaty odoriferous undulating rolls of girth spilling over into your personal space from your temporary neighbor.

>> ^MilkmanDan:
I'm tall, but not extreme percentile tall -- about 6'2". When I fly, some fat (like, really fat) person overflowing into my seat is way down on my concerns list, which goes a little something like this:
1. Some inconsiderate bastard in the seat in front of me decides that they will be a little more comfortable by reclining their headrest to a position about 3 inches in front of my nose, which leaves me short on breathing room AND legroom. Reclining my own seat relieves the breathing room issue but does so at the expense of the person behind me (which I hate to do), and the lack of leg/knee room remains.
2. Some old woman or young guy decides that riding in a cramped cattle car is the perfect time to wear a full gallon of perfume/cologne. I'm pretty highly anti-'fragrances' in general, and any prolonged exposure to even light applications of perfume or cologne tend to give me a headache. So, being inches away from someone that smells like they bathe in the shit puts me into a "HULK SMASH!" mood pretty quick.
3. Screaming baby. I understand that it can't be avoided sometimes. I know that pressure changes in the cabin affect younger kids eardrums and sinuses in ways that can be painful -- I used to have the same problem. But the parents that immediately give it up as a lost cause and give you dirty looks like "yeah, I know my kid is producing more decibels of sound than the jet engine outside, but I'm not even going to make an effort to try to calm them down" bother me.
...
4,016. Being seated next to a bloated sack of protoplasm.

He's trying and failing to be sarcastic, because it's all true.

Southwest is one of the few airlines left that aren't douchebags - No bag fees, No change feeds, No jacked-up fluctuating ticket prices, and one flight free every 8...sorry Kevin, its time to hit the treadmill.