Silent Bob No More: Kevin Smith Rips Southwest Airlines via Twitter

Kevin Smith may play the character of Silent Bob in most of the films he produced, but he has been far from silent on Twitter, ripping into Southwest Airlines for an incident in which he was asked to leave an airplane for being too heavy, Mashable reported. The airline, to its credit, also made good use of Twitter in its attempt to defuse the situation. Some of the tweets, from Smith's @ThatKevinSmith account: Dear @SouthwestAir -- I know I'm fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated? Wanna tell me I'm too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR. Dear @SouthwestAir, I'm on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies. And some of the airline's replies: @ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I'm so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM! Hey folks -- trust me, I saw the tweets from @ThatKevinSmith I'll get all the details and handle accordingly! Thanks for your concerns! I read every single tweet that comes into this account, and take every tweet seriously. We'll handle @thatkevinsmith issue asap I've read the tweets all night from @thatkevinsmith -- He'll be getting a call at home from our Customer Relations VP tonight. @ThatKevinSmith Ok, I'll be sure to check it out. Hopefully you received our voicemail earlier this evening. @ThatKevinSmith Again, I'm very sorry for the experience you had tonight. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do. @ThatKevinSmith We called you on the number you had on file in your reservation. If you prefer a different number, please DM me. Thanks! Our apology to @ThatKevinSmith and more details regarding the events from last night -- http://cot.ag/96KHC7 #Southwest The link in the last tweet is to a post on the Southwest blog, explaining the situation and again apologizing to Smith. From the blog post: 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. While Southwest may have done its part to resolve the situation, Smith found himself repeatedly addressing it on his Twitter account in response to other people's tweets. Some examples: "What exactly do you hope to acheive from the continued bitching?" Dude…THEY THREW ME OFF WITHOUT PROPER CAUSE. I passed their stupid test and still, they pulled me. But fuck'em: I flew home in ONE seat (even though I had two), with the arm rest down, just to prove a point. Via CluelessOldHag "You're big, you're rich, pay for the 2nd seat and stop griping." You haven't been following this story at all, have you? Also? That wasn't a very Christian thing to say for a self-professed "Jesus-Freak." Stop confusing people about Jesus, ya' succubus fuck. (1/2) Via KA-BLOCKED "I forgot that rules 4 everyone else don't apply if ur a famous director. Thanks @southwestAir for booting his fat ass" (2/2) You kidding me? HAD THEIR VERY OWN RULES BEEN FOLLOWED, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE BOOTED ME. According to the standard they set, I was good. The moral of the story: Only Jay (another recurring character in Smith's films) can get away with calling Silent Bob a tubby bitch.

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Silent Bob No More: Kevin Smith Rips Southwest Airlines via Twitter

David Cohen

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