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Before then u're dead right.
I was watching the “Today” show this morning, and they ran a segment aboutKenlie Tiggeman and her mother, who were “humiliated” by Southwest Airlinesbecause they are, um, sizeable people, and Southwest told them they had to buy additional seats to accommodate their girth. At least that’s how it was framed in the intro to the piece, as well as her claim that because she’s lost 120+ pounds in the recent past, she now easily fits between Southwest’s armrests.
Bad Southwest, right?
Well, not so fast.
Southwest’s “Customer of Size” policy is pretty well-known. I mean, I’m not a “CoS” and I know about the policy, in the same way that I know about their first-come-first-seated policy. At this point, it’s just general knowledge to the traveling public, since Southwest was for a time the airline featured in a cable-TV series called “Airline,” in which we got to see lots of really awful passenger behavior in every half-hour episode, along with airline employees dealing with this very issue. (Both of these policies are things I consider when looking at Kayak or Expedia, and frankly, both make me avoid Southwest altogether.)
Tiggeman doesn’t claim ignorance of this policy — she makes it clear that she’s not a rube who has never flown before. In her own words, she travels quite a bit and has, in the past, WHEN SHE WEIGHED 400 POUNDS, purchased two seats. She even says that when she weighed 300 pounds, she bought two seats. She’s now lost about 120 pounds. Bully for her. I hope for her health’s sake she keeps it up. But now that she’s a slim-n-trim 280, she fits into the 17-inch airline seats? Really?
“For the record, I can sit in any seat on the plane with the armrests down. I can use the seat tray table to place my laptop or water comfortably in front of me. I can cross my legs, read a book and/or listen to my iPod without encroaching on the seat next to me.”
I’ll give you a moment to go back and look again at the video of her sitting on Ann Curry’s couch. You tell me if this woman fits into a standard airline seat. Sorry, there is NO WAY Miss Kenlie fits into her airline seat without “encroaching” into the seat next to her, thereby making the paying customer next to her hideously uncomfortable for the duration of the flight.
So, if you’re a “Customer of Size,” flying on an airline that has a well-publicized “Customer of Size” policy, how do you get to start an outcry in the national media because said airline tried to enforce that policy? Is it just because you’re a blogger?
Ah, but Tiggeman isn’t just some random blogger – she’s also some kind of “political strategist,” (in my hasty internet search, I couldn’t dig up what kind or for whom, anywhere, though when she refers to herself in the interview as a “free market capitalist” I did manage to draw my conclusion). I assume this means she probably has more access to the media than most of us, so she can get her grievance about this supposed “discrimination” disseminated more easily than we could. Hence Tiggeman’s aggrieved appearances on network television.
Watching this interview, I was a little confused. At first, Tiggeman made it seem like Southwest making her buy this extra seat was some sort of surprise, when actually she was well aware of their policy. Then, she tried to frame herself as the aforementioned “free market capitalist” who completely understands that the airlines need to make money, but IN THE SAME BREATH, she then gets all socialist on us and starts blabbering about “equal rights to equal access.” Sorry Kenlie, this is NOT a civil rights issue. It’s not a government office building with mandatory ADA wheelchair ramps, and flying on a commercial airline isn’t some civil right that’s being denied you, so you don’t get to have it both ways. Also, from what I could gather from the interview, the only thing the gate agent did wrong (against the Southwest policy) was to not move the conversation away from the gate area and the rest of the passengers, and so the 100 or so passengers waiting for the flight witnessed what happened.
(Ummm, Kenlie? Honey, how do I put this gently? You weigh close to 300 pounds. I doubt anyone in that gate area was unaware of your presence in the first place.)
Then (here’s where I finally succumbed to my urge to roll my eyes and start saying “sheesh”) she actually has the stones to say what this really is, is an economic issue for the airlines, because now that 30% of Americans are officially obese (and something about that figure just turns my stomach), they need to get with the program and create designated seats for fat people!
Now, I don’t know what the statistics are on how many Americans have never flown/don’t fly at all/fly very infrequently, but I can’t imagine enough people are flying for the airlines to justify the cost of retrofitting their fleets to install special seats to accommodate a few customers.
So basically, what Tiggeman got was a network pulpit to go on television and bitch because she got her widdle feelings hurt by the mean Southwest agent who was doing pretty much what the Southwest policy says he’s supposed to do when confronted with a “Customer of Size.”
So, I have to ask, people, since I know I’m probably going to be crucified for posting this anyway:
1) How much are you willing to have tacked onto your ticket price so the airlines can retrofit their jets with Special Big-Girl Seats? I’ll tell you how much I’m willing to pay — absolutely nothing. The airlines are jacking us with so many extra charges (checked-bag charges, upcharges for bulkhead or aisle seats) that why should I have to pay one more penny?
2) Maybe the airlines ought to put a plane seat at the check-in area and gates, the way they have those bag sizers thingamajigs? This way, they can make everyone plop their ass into it and see if they really do fit.
3) How about when people buy their tickets online, they have a little button for them to click: Are you a person of size? yes/no? And the system finds them two seats together, charges them for both, and if they get to the airport and it turns out that a) the flight is not overbooked and has plenty of room, or b) they fit into the ass-sizer gate seat after all, they get one of those seats refunded, and some nice standby passenger can get on the plane.
Someone else’s rights end where mine begin. And thus it follows, the seat that CoS purchased ends where the seat that I purchased begins. And I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings, but if I see you coming down the plane aisle and you are assigned to sit next to me, you’re damn sure straight I’m flagging down a flight attendant and asking to be moved. I’m supposed to sit hunched to one side and end my flight with back pain and a stiff neck because I might hurt your feelings?
And Kenlie, I meant what I said when I said “Good for You,” about losing weight.
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