Hey Darlings! It’s easy and inexpensive to become a Big Spender, so why don’t you? If you get a paid subscription before the end of June, you’ll get the usual videos and playlists, and discounted travel planning. And! I’ll put together a souvenir goodie bag for you during my awesome summer road trip from St. Louis to the Berkshires in Massachusetts! Ready to hit the road with me?
I’m not even going to pretend I don’t like attention. I love attention! Would I be running around with pink hair, dumb tattoos, dressed like a 53-year-old toddler if I didn’t? I mean, let’s be real here. Single me out, please!
Except for you, Southwest Airlines. You can ignore me and we’ll all be happier that way.
At the beginning of the year Southwest changed their policy for “Customers of Size,” of which I’m one. Barely. My ass measures the same size as a Southwest seat. It seemed that the airline that has been the most cooperative for those of us with “unruly bodies”—as Roxane Gay once referred to them—was becoming the least cooperative.
While I wanted to never set foot on a Southwest flight again, I had some flight credits I didn’t want to waste, so I had a couple of panic attacks and went to the airport in April for a flight to Hartford, Connecticut. And it was fine!
So I booked a round trip to Burbank in May. That’s when things got weird.
Instead of retelling the story of the first leg of the trip, here’s part of the email I sent to Southwest that day:
First and foremost, I’d like to commend flight attendant M on the 8:30 am flight number XXXX from St. Louis to Sacramento on Tuesday, May 19. She goes above and beyond when it comes to customer care. I want M on every flight I take. That said, considering the experience I had with a Southwest gate agent named F (I think, he never introduced himself) at gate EXX in St. Louis for this flight, this might be my last Southwest flight after 12 years of flying no other airline. Here’s what happened: I’m a larger person, just on the cusp of being a Passenger of Size. Having taken four Southwest flights in the last three weeks, I’m aware of the policy change and had no problem until today. I fit into the seat and am able to comfortably put down both armrests. F, however, did not believe this. He approached me as I waited at the gate for boarding, said that I required a second seat and needed to purchase one. The flight was listed as sold out, so I said that I didn’t think it was an option. I had also volunteered my wheeled bag for gate check and was concerned about getting separated from it if I took a later flight. He left, returned minutes before pre-boarding, which I use because of a vestibular/balance disorder, and informed me that he had noted my refusal to purchase a second seat and I would not be allowed to book a single seat on future flights. Specifically, that my account was now flagged in a way that would not make it possible for me to book a single seat....
And it goes on from there.
The good news: although it took a week, I got two calls from Southwest, which I missed, but they emailed me to apologize, saying that I was right about F.’s behavior—employees can’t blacklist or manipulate passengers like he tried. They included a $150 voucher. I’m satisfied.
What I didn’t mention in the email: M, the lovely flight attendant who undid a lot of F.’s damage to my ego, told me something: there are always empty seats on a Southwest flight.
For the sake of an example, I just started booking a round-trip to Burbank in September. Each flight has a connection, so that’s four flights total that have only sold a few tickets this far in advance. Here’s part of the seating chart for each flight:
Those Xs aren’t wipeout rounds of Bingo. They indicate unavailable seats on each flight. The blue seats are available. They keep a row of empty seats at the back of each flight for situations where unruly passengers need to be moved, unaccompanied minors are flying, a passenger is having a medical situation, or, yes, for customers of size.
When I was having my pre-flight freak-out in April, I called customer service and another lovely rep talked me down. I thought it was interesting that she kept saying I wouldn’t have to pay for a second seat if there was so much as one empty seat on the plane, considering that it was a sold out flight.
Me: But the flight’s sold out. CSR: If there's one empty seat, you'll get a refund. Me: But there are no empty seats! CSR: Just ... if ... There will be an empty seat.
OH!! They start with 4-6 empty seats on each flight, and those seats count!
As long as the empty seats aren’t totally filled with kids and degenerates, I won’t get stuck paying for two seats!
Last year, on my last flight before the rule change, a rep at the Oakland airport and I were talking, and she told me there was a loophole and encouraged me to find it. I didn’t go looking but … there it is.
I had an empty seat beside me on every flight.
Unbeknownst to me, Southwest made another policy change in the middle of my trip. Which explained why, when I arrived for my return flight, the boarding pass system was back to the previous pre-January routine. I was given boarding passes for a second seat on each leg of my flight, like the old days.
The new new policy lands somewhere between the old policy and the recently-scrapped one. With the latest update, airport Southwest employees aren’t allowed to make the call on if a passenger needs a second seat. So fuck you, F.!
But … with the loophole, there wasn’t any reason for airport-based employees to make the call, anyway.
It was just a license for them to be cruel.
On the first flight of my return, I had a new experience I’m not keen to repeat: a vertigo episode hit me as I was boarding. I was fine, but required a hand from a flight attendant in putting my carry-on in the overhead. Then we had what might be the most turbulent flight I’ve ever been on, which made the vertigo and migraine symptoms even worse. I was okay, but I felt like shit. I decided I should alert a flight attendant on the last, longer leg to what was happening.
I pre-board because of my migraine-induced vertigo, and I was the second person on the next flight. My habit as soon as I enter a plane is to say hi to the first flight attendant and ask them if I can get a seat belt extender when they’re not busy. I walked on the plane, reminding myself to pause that request and deal with the health matter.
It didn’t go great.
Me: Hello! When you have a minute I have some health concerns I need to... FA: Did you buy a second seat? Me: Uh ... I have a second seat but that's not what this is about. I have... FA: [foists set belt extender into my hand] Tell the attendant in your section. Here's your belt extender.
Best I can figure, she was pissed off that the policy changed again and that was entirely my fault for being fat.
This is singling out I can do without.
There was a much more helpful flight attendant in my section who not only listened to my vertigo concerns and what help I might need (nothing, it turned out), but also replaced the faulty seat belt extender the snippy flight attendant had given me.
So, the good news is that a giant corporation made a bad policy change, people spoke out, and now they’re backpedaling on policy and issuing apologies and financial perks to the people negatively impacted by them.
Also good news: loophole!
But the bad news is, there are still plenty of fat phobic assholes working for Southwest Air. And everywhere. This isn’t going to stop me from booking a flight to Burbank in September, but it does prompt me to issue a warning quote to hateful people who have no business facing customers, from a beloved Burbankian, David Lynch as FBI agent Gordon Cole:
“Fix your heart or die.”
I like attention and coffee.
This sounds like a miserable experience and, as someone who’s got a lil extra cake in my basket, I hate that this happened to anyone but especially to my friend.