02-15-2010
08:32 PM
1 Love
I appreciate what you are trying to do to manage this customer service nightmare, Southwest. But this is about more than just your treatment of Kevin Smith. First off, for those who have been following the story, you know that Southwest also singled out another passenger on Kevin's second flight, a larger woman who was chastised for not buying two seats, despite the fact that no one was seated beside her and she could get her armrests down (SW standard for measuring a "large passenger"). SW totally humiliated her for no good reason - this has nothing to do with policies but rather with a total lack of common decency.
In digging into this story I came across countless other blogs about people who have been humiliated in a similar way by this airline. And yes, they have a policy - but it's a ridiculous policy; in Canada the Supreme Court ruled last year that the practice of forcing someone to buy 2 seats is discriminatory. Thank god we don't have to put up with this garbage up north. Come on Southwest - you are supposed to be creative in finding solutions; why not figure out something that suits both bigger and smaller folks alike? America is the fattest country on Earth - you're going to be fighting this battle and humiliating passengers for years to come if you don't revisit this policy.
The other issue here is that Southwest has been totally inconsistent and arbitrary in its enforcing of the rule. In reading about the experience of others degraded by this, the comment often is, "I've flown dozens of times and never had a problem - then, out of the blue, they kicked me off a flight."
So this is about more than just Kevin. It's about his seatmate who you degraded. It's about shaming people in public. It's about inconsistent rule enforcement of a rule that, to many, is discrimination. You can do better, SW, and until you do I will choose other airlines.
I understand folks not wanting to sit beside bigger folks. I really do get that. But did you think for a minute that SW crammed all of you into a tiny little box in the first place with virtually no room to move? SW has pitted passengers against one another by putting this rule in place, and slotting it under the guise of "safety" is insulting.
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