Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines

Kevin Smith. Director/Producer/Screenwriter/SILENT FUCKING BOB! He is a man of many hats. A man of many pounds (admittedly). A man who has a bone to pick with Southwest Airlines. A friend turned me on to Smith's podcast (called a Smodcast). My disclaimer at this point is that I LOVE his podcasts and am learning to love his movies. Smith is very funny, down to earth and very human (for lack of a better term).

This past weekend, Smith was traveling on Southwest Airlines to make an appearance in San Fransisco. Smith was ejected from a flight for being "a safety risk." According to Southwest's guidelines, one has to be able to put the armrest down to keep from having to purchase a second seat on the plane. This is to provide a comfort zone for other passengers or some shit like that. Mr. Smith was able to do so without a problem. To use his words, Smith is fat, but not THERE yet. In any case, he was wrongly ejected. I believe him when he says he was not belligerent or used celebrity (he claims he is not one) status in his arguments.

Once this happened, Smith launched a major Twitter campaign, railing against Southwest Airlines and its policies. Now, Smith is a very popular person on Twitter, having 1,669,754 followers. The unmitigated shit storm that arose from this incident has now been reported on CNN, TMZ, all the major news outlets, throughout the interwebs, Larry King asked to interview him. When Smith got home, he IMMEDIATELY recorded a special edition Smodcast to air his thoughts and put the whole story out there. Smith has refused interviews because he didn't want to come off as just a fat guy in a short segment interview. Instead, he refers everyone to his Smod so that they can get the full story.

For the record, I support Kevin Smith in this. I think he was treated unfairly and improperly. I hope Southwest Airlines reviews their policies and procedures, and better train their associates on how to properly address this situation. Ultimately, no action was required, but the attendants failed to recognize that.

For more about this, please go to Smodcast.com and listen to Smodcast #106. Once done there, go to his Final Words, parts 1 through 24 (love the irony in that) and view the video blog posts. It is lengthy (I LOVE saying that... it is lengthy... I never get to say that in real life) but worth it!