If the COS policy were enforced uniformly, and not left to the capricious judgment of individual gate and ticketing agents who bring their own issues and prejudices into the matter, then I could agree that it was fair. Unfortunately, we have seen -- and Southwest has been subject to several lawsuits -- that the policy is not enforced uniformly. Some agents put people under scrutiny and into the armrest test who would not be questioned by other agents. The policy cannot be considered fair and evenhanded when it relies upon individual judgment -- not to mention an embarrassing public "test" -- in order to be enforced.
And in this story, we have an example of the other and even more serious issue with the policy, and the problem that many people have encountered and what many consumer advocacy and size acceptance organizations have strongly decried: a passenger who was not made to buy a second seat on the first leg of his flight was told that he must buy a second seat for his return flight or be left stranded. This has happened before, on a number of occasions.
Now, in this case, this man may have actually become significantly larger, thanks to the fluid he was retaining, between his first flight and the second, but this is a rare case. Very few people are going to gain the inches of girth required to go from fitting in a seat to not fitting in a seat in the span of a few days' vacation or business trip. But that's what they've been told, and it's led to some very nasty confrontations because SWA employees immediately cleave to the policy despite the illogic of it.
There are solutions that would enable this policy to be fairly applied, but SWA has rejected them. There are solutions that would stop the practice of leaving people forced to buy second seats for their return flights or be stranded, but SWA won't hear them.
The airline is losing business over this matter, and will continue to face lawsuits over this matter, until they recognize that as it stands, they have and will continue to treat people very unfairly in the name of "fairness."
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