Director Kevin Smith got chucked out of a Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank, CA. He says was told he was too fat to fly. Smith is the director of flicks such as Clerks and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, and the upcoming Bruce Willis starrer Copout.

Southwest Airlines is being piled on – mostly because there’s a wacky element to the whole kerfuffle. You should be aware, though, that this is a deeper malaise, and Southwest has a tin ear when it comes to ejecting passengers for oddball reasons.

Kyla Ebbert

Too sexy to fly with Southwest - In July 2007, Kyla Ebbert, a 23-yr old college student and Hooters waitress, was seated on a Southwest flight about to take off from San Diego, headed for Tucson. A Southwest employee identified as ‘Keith’ comes up to her and tells her to step off the plane.

Once outside, he says to her – Quote “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to take a later flight. You’re dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re dressed too provocative to fly on this flight.”

She was wearing the same outfit on the plane as shown in the picture to the left -  a miniskirt, a sweater over a tank-top and high heels. After she agreed to pull up her top and pull down her skirt a bit, she was allowed to re-enter the plane and take her seat.

Travel Troubleshooter Chris Elliott says there are more such cases, and curiously, all these run-ins with the fashion cops have involved Southwest Airlines crew members. This prudishness is only matched by the hypocrisy of a family-friendly Southwest angering passengers by painting a plane’s exterior with a giant bikini-clad model – Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl Bar Refaeli.

Infants on Southwest

Too noisy to fly with Southwest - This little episode even made it into UpTake’s TI100 Dumbest Moments in Travel slideshow. 38 yr old Pamela Root, a San Jose resident, was evicted off Southwest Flight 637 in Amarillo, TX because her 2 yr old was yelling before takeoff.

It seems little Adam was shouting ‘Go! Plane! Go!’ and ‘I want Daddy!’ and they got bounced off the flight because the crew thought passengers wouldn’t be able to hear the preflight safety anouncements above the din.

Pamela Root and her son spent an unwanted extra day away from home, and had to make do with a portable crib and diapers. Southwest apologized, gave Pamela Root a refund and a $300 travel voucher.

T-shirt

Too political to fly with Southwest - 32 yr old Lorrie Heasley was flying from LAX to Portland, OR, when she got booted halfway, in Reno. Seems she was wearing a t-shirt with pictures of former President Bush, VP Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, along with a phrase which was a riff from the Robert DeNiro film Meet the Fockers.

Neither Southwest staff nor the passengers complained about it in the terminal at LAX or while boarding. At the stopover in Reno, Heasley and her husband moved to the front of the plane, and passengers complained about the t-shirt. She agreed to wear a sweatshirt over it.

But it was visible again when she fell asleep, so the crew ordered her to wear the t-shirt inside out, or leave. The couple decided to leave, and spent the night at a hotel, and had to rent a car to drive home.

Kevin Smith

Too fat to fly with Southwest - Southwest says Kevin Smith had originally purchased two seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank, as per Southwest’s Customer of Size policy.  It seems he changed his plans and boarded an earlier flight to Burbank, which had only a single seat for him.

So Smith was told he couldn’t fly on the flight, and asked to deplane and board a later flight which did have 2 seats for him. He was also given a $100 travel voucher for the inconvinience. Seems like Southwest handled it in a pretty reasonable manner, but here’s Kevin Smith’s version.

Also has to be noted that Kevin Smith is not the first ‘too fat to fly’ incident for Southwest. In Nov 2009, Okamoni Fa from San Jose had a Southwest ticket to fly to his uncle’s funeral. But he was told he had to buy an additional seat – which was also not available, same as what happened with Kevin Smith.

Southwest should nuance its position on this policy a bit and allow obese passengers to fly in cases where additional seats are not available and the passenger is already seated, or there’s an emergency of some sort.

Kevin Smith photo by Nehrams2020