via @thatkevinsmith on Twitpic

There’s been a bit of news floating around recently that I have, frankly, been hesitant to comment on here despite the fact that is probably one of the more relevant topics in recent events when it comes to our target demographic. For those of you who are unaware of what, exactly, I’m talking about (and bless you for having the ability to somehow avoid every major news outlet for the last week) – Kevin Smith (director of the highly acclaimed independent film Clerks) recently caused quite a stir on Twitter when he posted about being removed from a flight on Southwest Airlines because he was, well…Too fat.

The story is, honestly, considerably more detailed than that. If you’re interested in all the details you can hear them directly from Mr. Smith himself on his Smodcast web site. You can also see the two official responses from Southwest over on their Nuts About Southwest blog.

I’m not here to really debate either side of the issue in this particular story. I understand why an airline may have a policy that requires “passengers of size” to purchase additional seats. I also believe, though, that if they are going to have such a policy that it needs to be clear, easy to find, and (most importantly) not subjective. That’s the main problem I have with the facts of this story, as they are. Southwest has a policy that states that “persons of size” may be removed from a flight if they do not purchase two seats and a flight fills up. They also state that the ability to lower the arm rests on both sides of the seat is the “definitive gauge” to determine whether or not a passenger qualifies as a “customer of size.” In this case Mr. Smith claims that he could easily put the arm rests down and that he was not encroaching on the passengers to either side and yet he was still asked to leave the plane because he was a safety concern.

Southwest claims that they understand that asking someone to leave a plane because they are too large for the seat is a delicate matter, but they insist that the safety of all their passengers it’s necessary to enforce this policy on occasion. I’m not disputing that fact at all, but I think they could do more to educate their customers on the fact that the policy exists and put things in place to allow people to determine whether or not they could be subject to the policy BEFORE they get on the plane. They could, for example, put a seat in the Southwest section of the terminal so that passengers could test whether or not they comfortably fit before getting on the plane. More importantly, they could actually make passengers acknowledge that the policy even exists before they make a ticket purchase. This is the part that really gets me. Southwest claims that the policy impacts “less than half a percent” of their customers and claims that the onus is on the passenger to know whether or not they have “special needs” and book flights accordingly, but they do not go out of their way to advertise the fact that they even have a “customers of size” policy. If it weren’t for the fact that this issue came up in the press recently I would not have known they had the policy and Southwest is my default airline. As a result the only way that many passengers have of finding out the policy exists is when they are confronted with it personally, in public, and what can only be an extremely humiliating fashion.

Which is, ultimately, where I think the crime is in this story. It’s not in the fact that Soutwest has a policy about “customers of size.” It’s in the fact that there is no way for someone to know whether or not they will be subject to it until they actually get on the plane, and even then it seems to be entirely the call of the staff on board. As I said above, I fly Soutwest whenever I can and I’ve never been made aware of this policy, but now that I know it’s there I have to wonder if I’ll ever be called out for being “Too Fat To Fly” like Mr. Smith was. I know I can get the arm rests down comfortably, but even if I can that is apparently no guarantee against someone on the flight crew making the determination that I need an extra seat to fly, and if that happens I too will be subjected to the embarrassing ordeal of being removed from a plane in front of hundreds of strangers.

To say that the thought of that happening is mortifying is putting it mildly. I have tickets booked for a flight on Soutwest this August, but had this story broken before I made those reservations I may very well have booked on Air Tran. The prices were nearly identical between the two carriers, but I picked Southwest because I felt they offered a better quality service. Now? I’m not so sure.

Southwest claimed on their blog that they are taking a look at their policy in light of the press over this incident, and I hope that sentiment was sincere. I don’t think that any rational person would argue that there is never a case in which a “customer of size” policy would be necessary, but I think that if a carrier is going to have one they should make sure their customers are fully aware of it and able to determine whether or not it applies to them prior to getting on the plane. They also need to make sure their policy is consistent and not left up to the whims of whoever happens to be working the flight crew on any given day.

If Southwest had taken these steps prior to last weekend they wouldn’t be dealing with a public relations nightmare at the moment, and a very talented film maker wouldn’t be looking at the possibility of being forever known as “the guy who was too fat too fly.”