In the wake of renowned film director and movie star Kevin Smith being ejected from his seat on a Southwest Airlines flight out of from Oakland, California due to "safety" issues, i.e. his weight, this shows that something is terribly amiss in the airlines today. With the airlines packing people like sardines in seats that would make an anorexic supermodel uncomfortable, the plus-sized American, and let's be honest, the country is overweight in all, airlines have fallen behind the times, but the people paying the price are the consumers who need to fly to reach their destinations.
With the policy that is currently in place on most, if not all, airlines, has the larger American paying the price in embarrassment, humiliation, and cold, hard cash. When an extremely popular persona like Kevin Smith, who was able to put his seat belt on without an extender and had both armrests down, is removed in one of the most humiliated ways from a plane in the manner he was, this shows how the airlines view people who don't fit in their ideal of who they want to fly. Apparently this is not about customer service anymore. This is about how the large people are viewed by people who have a position of power over them.
The same thing happened to yours truly a few years back, but this time it was on Delta. I was seated in my seat, which was in the aisle seat of the middle section (a 3-3-3 plane setup), belt on and arms down. A young man, who was a member of some traveling high school sports team sat in the middle seat, waited five minutes, then stood up and walked away. Moments later, a attendant came over and told me that the man next to me complained and they wished me to leave the plane. I sat there, stupified, the man sat down, he was fine, and it was not like I was flowing in his seat. The woman who was sitting on the other side of him complained, saying that he sat in there perfectly fine, but to no avail. I was told to get my bag, which was a few aisles away, and leave the plane. I stood up, my face flaming cause I was embarrassed to the nth degree. I left the plane and they rebooked me on another flight, but I was seriously livid with the airline. I sent them an e-mail because they would not talk to me in person, nor over the phone, and received a response saying that "sorry it happened, but it was policy" and the rest was more of a giant middle finger to me, treating me less like a paying customer and a human, and more like someone who deserved no type of respectful treatment.
The way the airlines treat people is horrendous and I hope that no one has to deal with what Kevin Smith, myself, and more than likely hundreds of other overweight people have dealt with from airlines who have a policy which, in this country, is obsolete. The sardine cans with wings need to be adjusted for the trending weight of the nation. I am not saying that being overweight is a good thing, but it is something that needs to treated with respect and dignity to the person. Not everyone is going to be a model, nor a prototypical tv show character. People come in all different shapes and sizes, each one needs to be treated with the same amount of respect. Personally? I currently fly Airtran business class. I have never flown Delta since their treatment of me, and I have added Southwestern to my list of airlines who span the unfriendly skies.
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