Kevin Smith: 2 Fat 2 Fly
Southwest Airlines has accomplished the near impossible: Forced Silent Bob to speak.
And now, he’s causing all hell to shake loose on the airline that deemed the Hollywood director and unabashed Jersey Boy to big for his own britches — or at least too big for the seat he was sitting in — shamelessly kicking Smith off a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
After Smith boarded the plane, sat down and buckled up, the flight attendant told him this particular trip was a Husky Free flight and he was a “safety risk.” Perhaps the captain thought the plane would sway too much to the left and end up in Vegas instead of Burbank.
When asked what that meant, he was never given a reply, only a “come with me.”
Smith played his cards as cool as Luke at a prison, quietly getting up, collecting his belongs and exiting the plane. And then, he started tweeting to his 1.6 million friends on Twitter, blogging about the incident and the publicly sparring with an ineffective Southwest PR department that couldn’t dig its own grave fast enough.
The lessons:
1. Never mess around with a Jersey boy who tweets to 1.6 million people.
2. Check your fatty manifest before randomly ejecting Hollywood directors.
3. Stop randomly acting like a douche airline — making every big boned person feel guilty; if the ass fits, you must acquit.
Oh, but all of this gets funnier in a sad sort of way:
When Smith began tweeting about the incident from @thatkevinsmith, people started to clamor for something to be done. In Smith’s own tweets, here’s what happened:
I was told 5:20 flight was packed, but I could go Standby. They sent me to gate. Told lady whole story, and she said there wouldn’t be two –
seats on that earlier flight. I said I only needed one seat & that I didn’t buy an extra seat because I’m fat (which I am), but because I’m –
anti-social and didn’t want to sit next to someone & possibly have to make convo (in person, I’m very shy). She said she understood. I was –
issued the solo ticket. I get on the plane: open seat in the front row. Put my bag away, the sit between two ladies. As I’m about to buckle –
said I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit there because I was a safety risk. I asked for clarification and was given none (also asked “Please —
don’t do this” but that, too, fell on deaf ears. Ladies on either side said I wasn’t a problem. SWA-lady said arm-rests the decider. Arm–
my extender-less seatbelt, the woman who issued the ticket to me appeared in the doorway of the plane, came over to me and said the Captain –
rests come down, and voila! I’m legit! I’ve passed the stinkin’ arm-rest-test. And still, the lady asks me to get up and come with her off –
the plane. 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. –
You think I wanna fuck around on an airplane? I was right: I fit in that seat. But I can’t risk not complying: I’m more afraid of AirFeds.
Of course, Smith is right — that ominous airport security can weigh heavily on an y passenger and airlines are quick to say they’re going to use them. No one wants to be “escorted from the plane” or “met by security personnel.”
Now, Southwest wrote up a blog item basically calling Smith a liar and said he typically bought two tickets because of his girth. (Smith denies this, saying he had bought the second ticket because his wife was supposed to join him on this trip.)
Then Linda Rutherford wrote on the Southwest blog what Southwest should have written two days earlier:
“I had the chance this afternoon to speak directly with director Kevin Smith. I let him know that in my 18 years here at Southwest, I have never dealt with a situation like what has been unfolding in the last 48 hours. I let Kevin know we have refunded his airfare. I told him we made a mistake in trying to board him as a standby passenger and then remove him. And I told him we were sorry.”
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