Well, I guess I may as well weigh in (pun intended) on this one too. If you’re not a Twitter user, then you may not be aware of a Southwest Airlines captain’s decision to kick writer/director/actor Kevin Smith off a flight for being over weight. The problem is, they did this after allowing him to board the flight, and after he’d already been recognized by several passengers. Of course this was quite embarrassing. He immediately started tweeting about it, and Southwest found themselves in a PR nightmare.

You can read his Twitter feed to see all of his comments right from the beginning. Southwest had released a statement on the situation, but it seems to be unavailable as of now. I’ve created a PDF of the Google cache version of the statement that also includes user comments. Here is the statement itself:

Not So Silent Bob

Sun, 02/14/2010 – 14:57 — Christi Day

Many of you reached out to us via Twitter last night and today regarding a situation a Customer Twittered about that occurred on a Southwest flight. It is not our customary method of Customer Relations to be so public in how we work through these situations, but with so many people involved in the occurrence, you also should be involved in the solution. First and foremost, to Mr. Smith; we would like to echo our Tweets and again offer our heartfelt apologies to you. We are sincerely sorry for your travel experience on Southwest Airlines.

As soon as we saw the first Tweet from Mr. Smith, we contacted him personally to apologize for his experience and to address his concerns on both Twitter and with a personal phone call. Since the situation has received a lot of public attention, we’d like to take the opportunity to address a few of the specifics here as well.

Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest. He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby. As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy. Our pilots are responsible for the Safety and comfort of all Customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight. Our Employees explained why the decision was made, accommodated Mr. Smith on a later flight, and issued him a $100 Southwest travel voucher for his inconvenience.

You’ve read about these situations before. Southwest instituted our Customer of Size policy more than 25 years ago. The policy requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling. This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator. Most, if not all, carriers have similar policies, but unique to Southwest is the refunding of the second seat purchased (if the flight does not oversell) which is greater than any revenue made (full policy can be found here). The spirit of this policy is based solely on Customer comfort and Safety. As a Company committed to serving our Customers in Safety and comfort, we feel the definitive boundary between seats is the armrest. If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.

All of the above may be true, but there are kind and gracious ways to handle this. I see no reason why the ticketing counter can’t deal with issues like this, thus saving embarrassment to the passenger. While they should respond like this for any customer, at least Kevin can bring this issue to light. I certainly understand the desire to provide a comfortable seating experience to every flyer, but a little grace and kindness can defuse situations like this.

He has recorded a podcast about the experience. I’m sure it will be spicey.