Southwest Bumps Thin Woman from Flight to Make Room for Plus-Sized Teen: Was It Fair?
Southwest Airlines bumped stand-by passenger to accommodate heavy teen (bribriTO/Flickr Photo)
(CBS) A petite Sacramento woman was bumped from a Southwest Airlines flight to make room for an extra-large 14-year-old who required two seats.
The 5-foot-4, 110-pound woman, who was flying standby from Las Vegas to Sacramento, was buckled up and ready to go when the teen arrived late to the gate, reported the Sacramento Bee. She was surprised when flight attendants said she would have to deplane to make room for the teen.
When the woman - who did not give her name to the paper for fear of being perceived as insensitive - expressed irritation, airline employees began to "berate" her for complaining, she told the newspaper.
"We know this was awkward and we should have handled it better," said Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis, adding that normally the airline would ask for volunteers to give up their seats. In this case, however, flight attendants may have been rushing to make room for the kid in order to save him from embarrassment.
Southwest can't seem to win for losing. This is the same airline that made headlines recently when it booted chubby blogger Kevin Smith, 39, from his seat because he had to squeeze himself into it.
After the Smith incident, Southwest said his removal was for the "safety and comfort of all customers," maintaining that a large person could block passengers seated nearby from exiting quickly in the event of an emergency.
Southwest generally requires large passengers to buy two tickets. But in this case, the child's parents had purchased only one.
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Lou
www.anonymous-surfing.es.tc
Successive generations of people have grown in size and height. Why don't airlines accomodate this and make wider seats. Why do they insist on small commuter planes that affect passengers of average size and height? Why do they cram in so many rows that your knees bang against the seat of the person in front of you and you can't lean over to reach your bag on the floor? How is it good for safety when average sized passengers can't even stand up without hitting their head on the overhead bulkhead? How nimble is the average person supposed to be if there was an emergency?
Some of these conditions are no better than steerage.
Thats when they SHOULD have said they didnt have seating available for him on that flight, simple, easy, done.
"Successive generations of people have grown in size and height. Why don't airlines accomodate this and make wider seats."
The airlines are responsible to replace costly airplanes because morons insist on stuffing their faces with McDonalds super meals and greasy fatty foods?
You didnt have this fat problem before fast food, not like we see today!
Good grief, you are only on an average flight for a couple or three hours or so at most! you spend more time getting TO and FROM the airports and going thru check in and all the rest than you do in the actual flight, buck up! it's cramped but it's a short duration.
Too many people keep putting responsibility onto others for their problems. The airline was wrong to inconvenience the standby flyer whose money they had already taken and they had already seated. The kid was late and too big to fit into a seat - the airline should have just said No. Maybe mommy and kid would get the clue that it's time for a diet and time management classes?? This event just shows the mom and her fat kid that they don't have to be responsible for themselves, others will fix their problems for them.
This is typical of our culture in these times - the underachievers and irresponsible ones are outnumbering and overwhelming the ones with their acts together, dragging us all down.