Director Kevin Smith Kicked Off Southwest Airlines for Being Too Fat
Director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for "being too fat to fly." Kevin was able to put both armrests down and buckle his seatbelt without and extender. But a stewardess told him the captain said he was a safety risk. This was after he had already flown Southwest airlines into his destination earlier in the week. Kevin had checked his bag and was seated in front of an entire planeload of passengers when he was escorted off the plane. Naturally, he tweeted about it -- extensively and hilariously. Southwest Airlines tried to respond by Twitter, but Kevin is not accepting their apology just yet.
Filmmaker Kevin Smith, fresh from delivering a speech at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, unleashed his fury on Southwest Airlines after the pilot on Smith's flight from Oakland to Burbank ejected him for being "too fat to fly" Saturday evening.
"I'm way fat, but I'm not there just yet," Smith wrote on his Twitter.com account after the incident, adding that he was able to lower both arm rests at his seat. "I broke no regulation."
Southwest Airlines measures whether a customers too large to fly based on the passenger's ability to lower both armrests while sitting on the plane. If the passenger cannot lower one or both armrests, the carrier typically requires the passenger to purchase an additional seat or make arrangements on other flights that may accommodate for extra space.
"Wanna tell me I'm too wide for the sky?" Smith inquired on his Twitter account. "Totally cool, but fair warning folks: If you look like me, you may be ejected from Southwest Air."
Eventually Kevin was later put on another Southwest Airlines flight.
After Kevin reached his destination he tweeted: "Hey @SouthwestAir! I've landed in Burbank. Don't worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised."
Bestselling author Neil Gaiman tweeted that he would be happy to sit next to Kevin on a flight based on the photo that Kevin uploaded during the incident (posted above) "even though they are mortal enemies."
@ThatKevinSmith http://twitpic.com/1340gw - Dear @southwestair, *I* would gladly sit next to @thatkevinsmith on a plane. We are mortal enemi[es]
Kevin was appreciative of Neil's support, but noted that it changed nothing between them, referring to him as "Hair-Bear..." (Neil is known for his fabulous, if at times a bit unruly, mane of hair.) And no, we have no idea how this mock-feud began.
But Kevin is planning on addressing the incident again on his podcast tonight. He has promised to tweet about Southwest Airlines once a day for the foreseeable future.
We say: Kevin fit fine in the seat and didn't even need a seatbelt extension. And even if he did, how dare Southwest Airlines humiliate a passenger by frog-marching him off a full plane after he had been seated and his luggage checked? Southwest Airlines has the smallest seats in the business -- even skinny people with long legs are in for a world of misery on their flights.
