Kevin Smith suffered an outrageously outrageous outrage!!1 when he was asked to disembark from his Southwest flight on the grounds that he was too large to fit “safely and comfortably” in the seat. His original booking included two seats, but he instead tried to catch a different flight on standby and only one seat was available. He was furious:
“I’m legit! I’ve passed the stinkin’ armrest-test. And still, the lady asks me to get up and come with her off the plane,” Smith wrote on his Twitter page yesterday.
“I get up without a fuss at all, quietly grab my bag, make eye contact with a fellow Fatty who was praying he’d pass, and leave.”
At her popular “fat acceptance” blog, Kate Harding worries,
But there are still probably millions of fat people who dread getting on flights — and not just on Southwest — because they don’t know if they’ll actually be allowed to use the tickets they paid for, or if they’ll be removed from the plane like criminals, forced to fly standby and in some cases, forced to fly standby and pay twice as much for it.
“Praying he’d pass,” and verbiage like dread, criminals, and forced, certainly do evoke a sense of victimhood. It’s true that since most households don’t possess an airline seat, a true “armrest test” is impossible to complete until you actually board the plane, thus subjecting yourself to possible humiliation if you don’t fit comfortably. If only there were some way for people to take responsibility for themselves and find out in advance if they’re too large for one seat! Wait, perhaps there is.
It’s possible to look up the size of seats on airplanes in advance! You can call the airline and ask, or you can look it up online. Now that you know Southwest’s seat is 17 inches wide, grab a roll of tape and go sit down. Put pieces of tape on either side of yourself. Measure the distance between the pieces of tape. If the result is greater than 17″, definitely get two seats. If it’s close to 17″, think about getting two seats so you don’t have to worry about being asked to disembark. It’s a crazy idea, but it just might work!
If Kevin Smith passed the “armrest test,” his seatmates weren’t complaining, and the other “Fatty” was permitted to fly, then, yes, Southwest has a problem with arbitrary enforcement and they should tighten that up and enforce the policy all the time. Southwest actually has a pretty clear “Customer of Size” policy, and I think it’s really decent of them to refund the cost of the extra seat if it turns out the flight is not full.
It should be noted that although Smith says his seatmates did not complain, the Southwest rep noted they were both leaning away from him. Smith said they were already like that when he sat down, and that he spoke to them both and said they had no problem with him. I will accept both of those things as true: Smith’s seatmates had no problem with him and were already leaning away, and Southwest staff documented their leaning. And now I’ll speculate that the Southwest staff concluded, from that leaning, that Smith’s seatmates felt encroached upon, and acted on it.
“Fatties” aren’t the only ones who feel victimized in this situation. I used to fly a lot for business and when I had a really large seatmate I always leaned away. I do not like strangers touching me, and often even when the armrests are down, a large passenger can “ooze” (as one of Kate’s commenter’s admitted she did) into the next seat. I wished – in my younger years I lacked the courage to say anything about it – that someone in a position of authority would make this person get the two seats they obviously needed, so that I wouldn’t have to spend the entire flight contorting myself to get away from them. But most people want to be nice, and not hurt anyone’s feelings. In the meantime you’ve got someone annexing space you’ve paid for and causing you emotional stress and physical pain as you try to get away when there’s no place to go. It’s bad enough to try to sleep on a hotel bed; it’s worse to do so after having to rigidly hold yourself in some unnatural position for a three hour flight.
The airline seat width remains completely unaffected by anyone’s feelings about it. Nor do they stretch, no matter how much we all might wish it. So while you folks in the “fat acceptance” crowd are perfectly entitled to seek rights, privileges and/or entitlements related to your size, as long as the seat size remains about 17″ wide, it is you who must adjust, and not the other passengers.
This is God’s way of telling you to go on a diet.
Why not… I suppose He could use airline seat size as a helpful nudge, if the health problems were insufficient.
Wow. As some who loves the Pursuing Holiness blog, I can’t tell you how disappointing and infuriating this post is.
““Fatties” aren’t the only ones who feel victimized in this situation. I used to fly a lot for business and when I had a really large seatmate I always leaned away. I do not like strangers touching me, and often even when the armrests are down, a large passenger can “ooze” (as one of Kate’s commenter’s admitted she did) into the next seat.”
Oh. Boo. Hoo, Laura.
I’m a Kevin-Smith-sized person, or maybe a tad smaller. I have no problem meeting the “17 inch seat test”. But I also have gone through periods of regular business travel and each and every time I fly I spend the entire flight with my body leaning and contorted. And even if I lost weight, it would do little for the span of my shoulders, which I have to keep hunched inward the entire flight to avoid bumping into my seat mates.
You fly uncomfortably ever once and while when a larger passenger is next to you. I have to fly uncomfortably EVER TIME I fly.
Suck it up and have a little Matthew 7-inspired compassion.
I’ll grant there is a level of personal responsibility here for those of us that are overweight. And I hate the liberal victim-hood mentality. But it’s not like there is some magic switch we can push and suddenly be smaller.
And do you have ANY idea how insulting ECM’s comment is? Yeah, that’s it. Those of us who are overweight just had NO IDEA we needed to lose weight until God told us through sized-too-small-for-an-overweight-US-populating airline seat.
What a jerk.
It seems the last two groups of people that are still safe to ridicule are Christians and fat people. It’s a shame to see the former group ridiculing the later group on this blog.
No, you don’t. You can choose to buy an extra seat, or fly first class or business class. As for ECM’s comment and my reply – God has used all kinds of circumstances to change my thinking on a variety of issues, including addressing my sin of gluttony. (Which is a really old-fashioned way of putting it, but in my case, is quite accurate. YMMV.)
The median weight of the US population is entirely irrelevant, as are the reasons why any individual is overweight. The rationale behind anyone’s weight but my own is none of my business. It is irrelevant whether we agree with an airline’s decision to squeeze in more seating in order to lower ticket prices. Seat size is what it is, and complaining that it is somehow unfair will not make them larger after you’re seated. Complain before the fact and lobby for change, by all means… but once you’ve bought the ticket, you’ve agreed that you want that seat at the width it currently is, not the width you want it to be. The only personal responsibility question at hand is, will you fit in the seat without encroaching on your neighbor? If you will not, your choices are to a) not buy the ticket, b) buy a ticket for a larger seat or two seats.
lol, yes, I’m a jerk except that, uh, I know *lots* (I’d have said “tons” but that’s probably also insulting to the hyper-sensitive) of fat people that not only don’t think it’s a big deal that they are in the 300+ category, but that don’t think they need to lose any weight, so let’s not paint all fat people as enlightened, terrifically self-aware, individuals desperate to lose weight. (And, for the record, I’m no a 40 day water fast, currently, and I’m barely moderately overweight, but I can see where letting it get away from me will end in tears.)
Gotta say one thing here. I’m a “normal” sized person. Not built like a super-model, not heavy enough to be obese. And I have yet to fly coach on ANY airline with a person on each side or a window seat with a neighbor and NOT have to lean away, curl my shoulders in, or contort myself in some uncomfortable position just to feel like I’m NOT encroaching on someone else’s personal space. Yes, overweight passengers make the positions more necessary and more exaggerated. But I find it hard to fly any airline these days and call myself “comfortable”. And let’s face it… it’s not just about the seat size. They have all MASSIVELY downsized and cut the number of flights in half while booking each flight fuller and fuller. The result is a society that grew up flying on half full planes where most customers got two seats to themselves by default. And now they shove us into tiny little seats on overbooked flights and wonder why people complain. I remember flying as a kid and my mom and I always got a whole row to ourselves. It must be 8 years or more since I’ve been on a flight where that would be even remotely possible.
I’m not saying either side is right or wrong. But you have to admit that claiming someone’s weight is why you’re not comfortable on a flight is like saying the broken thermostat is why you’re too hot in a burning house.
That argument removes personal responsibility from the equation. If someone is oozing into my seat and annexing space I paid for, that’s their fault. Seat size is a knowable variable, not some mysterious factor in traveling. It’s a fact that seat sizes are smaller and planes are fuller.. It’s also a fact – and of course these things are related – that tickets are significantly cheaper than they used to be. Businesses make these kinds of changes all the time – just like restaurants have jumped up portion sizes – and that is their prerogative.