Rewarding Obesity, Southwest Giving Free Second Seats To 'Customers of Size'
Southwest Airlines is receiving a mix of praise and scorn over a policy giving obese passengers free seats to hold their overabundant girth. Basic economics suggests that it will result in healthy passengers subsidizing the humungous. Worse, some thin passengers will get booted from flights to make room.
Southwest didn't announce its "Customer of Size" policy with fanfare. Rather, it came to wide public attention after fat TikTokkers started educating each other on how to take advantage of it.
Southwest has caved to the cattle.
— Amiri King (@AmiriKing) December 15, 2023
‘Customers of size’ will now receive a free extra seat to accommodate their poor health decisions.
Yes. Even if the airline is overbooked.
Which means someone who is not a busted can of biscuits will have to deplane so southwest can cater to… pic.twitter.com/ZC0D1Wc444
The standard for getting a free extra seat strikes us as a little vague. According to the airlines posted FAQ:
"The armrest is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size. It serves as the boundary between seats. If you’re unable to lower both armrests and/or encroach upon any portion of a seat next to you, you need a second seat."
As word spreads and more and more heavy people belly up to take advantage of the policy, maybe we'll see test seats at Southwest gates akin to luggage size-testing boxes.
While it's not mandatory, the airline encourages jumbo flyers to buy a second seat in advance and then ask for a refund:
“The purchase of additional seats serves as a notification of a special seating need and allows us to adequately plan for the number of occupied seats on board. It also helps us ensure we can accommodate all customers on the flight for which they purchased a ticket and avoid asking customers to relinquish their seats for unplanned accommodation."
That last part is particularly worrisome, as it anticipates times when the "customer of size" policy compels Southwest to bump a normally-proportioned passenger to clear a second seat for a huge one.
According to the New York Post, that hard-to-swallow scenario is exactly what was imposed on a mother and her two teen sons, who were told that their flight home after a vacation was overbooked.
"Please help me understand why do I have to spend the night without any accommodations in Baltimore because an oversized person didn’t purchase a second ticket,” she wrote in a TikTok video account of her treatment. The video captures a Southwest employee telling her, "Even if there are not enough seats, we have to accommodate that customer of size."
It's finally happened; Southwest Airlines has caved and is being praised for giving plus-size customers a buy one get one free.
— 🇺🇸 Larry 🇺🇸 (@LarryDJonesJr) December 13, 2023
Their policy now allows overweight flyers to purchase one seat and get another complimentary.
We are rewarding bad habits now. pic.twitter.com/7ooWDMgFZi
The free seat policy is apparently unique among domestic carriers. "Southwest is the only airline that allows you a second seat at no extra cost even if the flight is fully booked," wrote self-identified "fat solo traveler" Kimmy in an October video that brought the woke policy to widespread attention. In the video, she boasts of eating up a free second seat more than a dozen times already.
Just the latest example of declining American society encouraging self-destructive behavior and then distributing the costs to everyone.
