Heavyweight Action Online Between Silent Bob, SWA

Posted by Cynical Sarah on February 15, 2010

Behold the power of the Internet. (And anyone out there heading up a company/corporation/business of any kind may want to take note of just how powerful it is.) In a matter of two days, Kevin Smith has used Twitter, his blog and Smodcast to vilify Southwest Airlines, and it’s getting him some results.

To start from the beginning, I have a little-used Twitter account that I use to follow a few personalities out there who I find entertaining. One of those personalities is Kevin Smith (Silent Bob or the director of Clerks, which ever reference works for you), and he was lighting up Twitter with his rant about how SWA treated him this weekend.

I’m not a fan of Smith’s potty mouth or his weed policy, but I respect the guys work, his sense of humor and now his use of the Internet to hold a company accountable for its actions.

I’ll give you the down and dirty of the story – Smith had tickets for an SWA flight. He was at the airport early and asked to be put on standby for an earlier flight. As he did this, he was questioned about the fact he had booked two seats, and with the flight being booked so full even if he made it on, there would only be one seat available.

This is the point where he says he’s got the extra seat merely for convenience and privacy, not because he “needs” two seats per the SWA policy for larger passengers.

He magically makes it on the flight, and is then pulled because Susanne (the attendant who issued his tickets and got him on the flight) says there are safety issues. Boiled down to the basics, he is too fat to fly, despite being able to put the arm rests down and buckle the seatbelt without an extender.

The flight leaves, Smith is left behind to take up his seats on his originally scheduled flight. In the meantime, he uses his time to tweet his outrage and disbelief. This is hardly the end of the story, though, as his followers express their own outrage, and SWA starts to feel the burn even before his next flight. And the burn just keeps getting worse after his next flight and once he gets home.

To get the full story you’ll need to:

1. Listen to the Smodcast #106. It ends up being more than an hour long, but it’s worth it.
2. Read SWA’s first blog on the subject. It’s sort of a back-assword apology.
3. Read Smith’s two additional blogs on the subject: Burn Hollywood Burn and Running Out of Gas on This Subject.
4. Read SWA’s second blog, still not really apologizing for the situation but rather the poor communication.

At the very least, listen to the Smodcast because it tells the whole story from Smith’s point of view, including seeing another passenger “of size” nearly go through the same thing. And you might as well ignore the lopsided stories being strung out there on sites as reputable as CNN.

People seem to be latching on to the wrong part of this story. Smith might be, self admittedly, a fat guy, but he’s not so big he can’t fit into one seat on an airplane. He’s even willing to prove that fact, and states that while still seated on the first flight, he asked the passengers next to him if they were comfortable.

Perhaps what makes his side ring even more true is that he has to say over and over again “Yes, I know I’m fat, just not that fat.” As any overweight person can attest, it takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there like that and point out the biggest thing you’re not happy with. Most people would stay silent, no matter what their outrage, to avoid having to do that.

However, some people are so stuck on denouncing SWA for it’s fat-person policy, or busy telling Smith that he needs to stop whining and losing weight, that they’re missing the point that SWA mishandled the situation. I think Smith’s outrage and the resulting Internet frenzy he’s unleashed are justified, not just in his case but also standing up for the woman who was on his next flight as well. It’s about customer service and being decent human beings, not about one fat man being kicked off a plane.

There are going to be people who are “too fat” for one seat, that’s a given in a nation riddled with obesity. If they’re going to have a policy to deal with it, SWA needs to better clarify it’s policies for its employees and its customers. They also need customer service training sessions to teach their employees how to handle these kinds of situations tactfully and compassionately.

Perhaps the first step in the right direction would be a true apology to Smith, and find the girl on the other flight to give one to her too.

As a side note – I can’t believe how far this “news” story has bloomed over the internet since Smith started his tweets. Today there was a story on CNN.com, this afternoon it was a Wonderwall story in MSN.com’s entertainment section, an AP story on Yahoo News, and I’m sure there are many other places out there other than my site where it’s popping up too.

It’s been incredible to watch this story unfold online and to also see how painfully obvious it is that the news stories are more about getting traffic rather than actually trying to tell the full story and get some real answers for people.

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Tags: celebrities, odd news

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