02-15-2010
04:43 PM
I'm sorry; I missed the obvious #15, for the thin people in our audience:
15) You'll pay for the whole seat... but you'll only use the edge!
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02-15-2010
11:56 AM
1 Love
Ok. First, no, I'm not a fanboi, in either direction, although -- full disclosure -- my best friend's been a ramper for SWA for about 6 years now.
I caught this when it first tore loose last night; I might have been the first person to point it out to Christi and Brandy, or not, but they were on it within about 3 minutes.
There are quite some number of things in the comments here that I want to address:
1) We know, because SWA told us, that Smith often buys 2 tickets on their flights. We have speculation that he doesn't do it because he's "of size", but because he wants privacy from people handing him scripts. But that's only speculation, and you can't then use it as evidence against SWA, guys.
2) Why did SWA tell us this? Well, cause someone was sniping at them in *very* public, for questionable reasons. That Kevin buys 2 tix on SWA as a matter of course seems entirely germane to this issue, to me.
3) Did SWA screw up? Certainly; if there *weren't* any other seats on the plane, they shouldn't have standby'd someone who had 2 tickets onto it. If there *were*, they shouldn't have taken him off.
4) Is Smith bitching about the wrong thing? Certainly; he's trying to make this about the CoS policy, when it's *not*; if it *was*, he wouldn't have been buying two tickets right along... or *he* would have told us that he did it for privacy reasons, instead of commenters here trying to fanwank it. (I gather from one comment that he might have said this in the podcast, I didn't listen to it.)
5) Is Smith entitled to privacy over his weight? Hell no; not only did he bring this up -- quite loudly -- but *he makes no bones about how fat he is; the contrary, it's one of his major riffs; anyone who doesn't think so, go read his last 3 months of tweets. You think SWA did Smith; imagine being Smith's *wife*. He's actually a sit-down comedian; he's *completely* a public figure; if he talks about it first, all bets are off. Legally.
6) @Topher: the person whom you dissed as astroturf is *British*; they say things like "carriage". You missed "ticked the box"?
7) "Not So Silent Bob". I think that was genius, myself. Sometimes you have to be a corporation, but there's no sense in not trying not to be one, whenever possible -- and that's clearly what they were doing.
8) There is no number 8.
9) Though Good Morning America tried to book Smith the next morning to talk about the incident -- among others (and yes, GMA showing up at his door might have been a bit of a stretch, but again: *this is news. Smith made it news. He shouldn't be surprised when it's covered as news*) -- his response is, effectively, "No, I'm gonna tell *my side of the story* on my podcast, and if anyone wants to ask me questions or counter it, well, my 1.6 million followers won't hear them, and I won't engage". Sorry, folks; that's when Smith lost his credibility with me, personally.
10) "Customer of Fragrance" would be a great name for a rock band.
11) Equating size, color, and faith as issues which might impact someone's seating on an airliner is a strawman of this highest order. *Whether you physically fit in the seat* is an objective measure, not based on anyone's personal tastes or prejudices. As we've noted, that particular issue may not actually apply to this case, which is why it's so disingenuous that this is the point Smith is harping on.
12) "policy allows any employee to challenge any passenger at any time". Yup. Southwest's policy does that, and if you read the policy of every other scheduled part 121 commercial airline, I guarantee you their policy will say the same thing, for precisely the same reasons. If these things trouble you, then fly charter, or drive.
13) Concerning the opinions of other people who are identified as Southwest employees, posting on private accounts: they may be being pretty dumb, and endangering their jobs, but if *you* take what they say as the official position of Southwest Airlines, then you're the one being an idiot. If you don't think people should be entitled to their opinion, then what the hell are you posting *here* for, huh?
14) @Brendhan: your list of incidents there? How much time does that cover? In 2008, SWA flew 101,920,598 people. Even if we apply Joe Girard's "Law of 250" to that list of 5 incidents, and call it 1250 incidents that didn't make the news on Twitter and Slashdot, that's slightly over .001%, which explains SWA's customer service ranking in the industry. Assuming they all happened the same year, which I'm quite certain they did not. See also "sampling bias".
15) ... but at this point I'll be repeating myself, and I have real work to do. It's the nature of America today that I probably haven't changed the mind of anyone who *posted* here; mere facts rarely accomplish that. But perhaps those just reading will benefit from a balanced, reasonable, thoughtful recap of the issue, and hopefully I've provided one which is comprehensible, rather than compost.
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