Kevin Smith’s most famous role is a guy who rarely speaks. But he’s got a lot to say – much of it profane – after being kicked off a Southwest Air flight because he didn’t fit comfortably into the seat. “You [messed] with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!” Smith, whose next film, Cop Out, comes out Feb. 26, posted on Twitter.
Smith, 39, originally purchased two tickets “as he’s been known to do when traveling Southwest,” the airline noted, but when he decided to fly standby on an earlier flight, only one seat remained. Although he had been seated, he was asked to leave. Smith, who played Silent Bob in his Clerks movies and who has battled his weight for years – “I know I’m fat,” he confesses – was given a $100 voucher and arrived in Burbank on a later flight. But he was in no mood to accept an apology.
“I broke no regulation, offered no ‘safety risk’ (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?)” he Tweeted. “I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like ‘Please don’t tell…'” Smith added that while the ordeal was embarrassing, his “Jersey Girl training” (the 2004 flop starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) was helping him cope.
Well, at least he didn’t pull the “don’t you know who I am” routine. And please…no “Silent Blob” jokes.
Last I saw recent pictures of him he didn’t look THAT fat. I know he is over-weight, but I always assumed they only kicked out the really big people.
Kevin Smith is a cool guy who makes great movies. He is also a gigantic fat tub of lard and I would be very pissed off if he was sitting next to me on a flight.
You see, when fat people sit next to you, they take 100% of their seat as well as about 10-20% ofyour seat.
So, nothing against Mr. Smith or other fat people but I just don’t have any seat real estate I’m willing to give away.
#1 He’s not THAT fat, it’s that the seats are made for Japanese woman from the 1930’s. I’m 6’1″ and 175lbs. Most folks call me thin or skinny and MY shoulders can not fit “inside” one Southwest seat, I stick into one side or the other unless you kinda sit sideways a little. It’s a RIDICULOUS joke. True Americans and bigger (fatter) now than in the past, but it works the other way as well, the seats smaller (used to be 34″+ inches wide in coach, now 31″ or smaller).
I am much bigger than Kevin Smith. I fly regularly and have never bought (or been asked to buy) a second seat. I think there is way more to this story than we are seeing here.
@Glass Half Full… I know exactly what you mean… I’m 6′ 7″ and around 240 lbs. I’m certainly not obese but as a “big” buy there’s absolutely no way my shoulders fit within the confines of a single coach seat. Whenever I fly SWA I buy 2 seats just to be safe. If the flight isn’t oversold they’ll give you a refund on the 2nd seat.
Obviously he is big enough because he routinely buys two seats. But then again, we always knew he was a foul mouth hot head. He is the one coming off looking like the douche bag here.
Maybe the flight attendants didn’t much care for his movies.
Or even more likely, they mistook him for Michael Moore.
The real tragedy is that they let Michael Moore fly at all.
Why is he flying coach?
Is this really a story? The guy obviously knows he needs two seats but tried to fit in only one, anyway.
The best flight I ever had was when I sat next to a 90 pound japanese girl. I had plenty of arm and legroom.
Check out the SouthWest blog. He usually buys two seats but was trying to get on an earlier flight on standby where only one seat was available.
No Kevin is NOT the douchebag here. The problem is that the airlines are giving NO quarter for this seating problem. No extra seats, no reservations for customers wanting propietary seating (wider seats reserved for special customers), no planes for special customers, no nothing. Every flight has at least 1 person with a seating problem on it (certainly every flight I’m on because I’m the guy). They can’t reserve ONE LOUSY FUCKING SEAT on each plane? What do they lose with the larger seat? 8%? Charge 10% more for it, I’LL PAY FOR IT!!!! But no, that would represent an administrative problem or a management problem or a minor engineering problem. All of which costs money so it’s left out of the plans. Meanwhile all the airlines are losing money, as opposed to the old days when customers were given basic amenities, and the airlines charged properly for the seats, and made money. GAH! America isn’t going down the tubes because so many of us weigh more than we should; we’re going down because there isn’t a brain between each person in charge of such things; particularly the elected ones in Washington. ALL the problems have solutions; we merely need to apply them. THAT’s the shame of it all.
there is ONLY COACH on Southwest, and often the stews are a surly lot, (pms often?)
He doesn’t look that big. I’d WAGER that Southwest didn’t want to lose the $$$ on that second seat. “Oh wait, he’ll just start buying ONE ticket, if we let him fly on just a single seat.”
BTW, doesn’t mean he’s that FAT, means that when the prices are LOW (meaning a sale) that he, along with multitudes of others, buy two tickets for more comfort. Nice to have no- one next to you….especially on the no frills southwest flight. Worst ever..having a guy with a salami sandwich next to me….and kept leaning towards the window (I was in the middle seat) so he could see where we were. Yuck. Wished I’d bought two tickets….
#10 Did you even read the article at all?
The elites seem worked up about ego lately. Maybe he has a big fat ego.
The Ego acts according to the reality principle; i.e. it seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing grief.
Airlines are grief factories. Busted pensions, lousy stock performance and high costs. Explore the fat fraud called OPEC and use your ego.
What was the line from the original Hairspray flick?
“Fatty fatty two-by-four,
Can’t get through the dressing room door?!”
If you can’t pass through the airliner door, THEN you should be denied a seat, not otherwise. (And the airliners should install fatty seats too.)
#13, they airlines want you to buy 2 seats, or better yet get you to pay for a business class seat. Its all about money. Coach is little more then the equivalent of a cattle car. I imagine seats will completely disappear from some flights in favor of some type of standing option.
http://www.stopbuyingcrap.com/customer-service/standing-seats-in-airplane/
I’m all for the armrest test, and I’m glad Southwest has taken an interest in seat encroachment, as I really have no interest in sharing my seat with another passenger. In this case, Smith says he was seated and the armrests were down, so that should have been the end of the story. Probably a blown judgment call, tainted by the fact that he usually buys two seats. Or maybe he really doesn’t fit a into a single seat. Short of being on a plane with him, who knows.
Silent Bob needs Jay to roll a fat chronic blunt and start another movie adventure. I can imagine Jay rappin’ f_ck the airlines (as opposed to NWA’s f_ck da police). Suddenly they’re surrounded by TSA agents and, they’re tazering the two of them till they crap themselves.
My take on it, or first class, or business class. If you want to go cheap, expect to be piled up like cord wood.
Heh! My favorite movie quote was from Smith in Mallrats.
“Fly, fat ass, fly”
Somewhat inappropriate to bring that up now though I guess.
As someone who’s 6’4″ and 280lbs, most airline seats don’t fit. They are designed for average people, not those of us who are above average ;oP
If they have to grease your thighs to get you in the door at Wal-Mart, you’re too fucking fat to fly.
http://bit.ly/63bu60
I’m 145 – 155 lbs, 5’9″; I cannot really fit into airline seats comfortably. They keep getting smaller is the real problem. People shouldn’t be so skinny and they should move around more. Size of these seats doesn’t help either problem.
Follow his Twitter feed. The man is the most self aware, self deprecating guy there. He refuses to pull the “Do you know who I am?” BS, instead ranting about it on a customer service level, which is what it really comes down to.
As far as flying coach, yeah, he’s got money, but he’s to first to admit he’s no Speilberg in the pantheon of directors, so he doesn’t have that much money and he doesn’t see to point in flying first class on a commuter flight. Cross country, yeah makes sense even if your not loaded to pay extra for first class if you can swing it, but from Oakland to Burbank?
There are reports that smith was drunk and being loud. He did get the next flight after sobering up.
Ya ever check out those armrests in the middle, that’s right, only big enough for one arm, so somebody’s got one arm too many. Or of you’re 6′ or taller and the person in front of you needs to recline all the way, well, you have to experience it to believe it. Ohh, the pain, after a transatlantic flight I had a liquid build up in my left knee that had me limping for days. I found a soultion though, I stopped flying.
On the side of real news, there’s something very interesting happening among the big airlines. It’s called oneworld ( http://oneworld.com ). They’ve been competing themselves into bankruptcy. So they’ve decided to get together and slice up the pie so to speak. The way I understand it they’re going to divide up routes where they can and control prices where they can’t. Good for them, bad for the consumer.
On TWiT tonight Leo read the response by SouthWest. Kevin purchased 2 seats as he usually does. He wanted a earlier fligh so he took stand-by. There was only one seat open for him. The pilot, under his proper legal authority, requested his removal. Kevin was given a $100 voucher and was booked on a later flight.
I don’t like SouthWest’s policies. The pilot did what was the correct thing to do, but SouthWest was still wrong for putting him on a plane with one seat when he paid for two.
If I have to buy two seats because I’m bigger than average weight, then I feel, to be fair, people under average weight should pay less.
Could be worse, Dvorak said that a Japanese airline wants its passengers to take a crap before flight…
The airlines treat passengers like livestock being loaded into a trailer, then yell at them for being market weight. I’m surprised they don’t load us with cattle prods.
Even confinement hogs have mores space than airline passengers.
>> Zybch said, on February 14th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
>> #10 Did you even read the article at all?
Did you?
The article says — ?Smith, 39, originally purchased two tickets “as he’s been known to do when traveling Southwest,” the airline noted, but when he decided to fly standby on an earlier flight, only one seat remained.”
So, I’ll say it again, this guy KNEW he needed two seats but try to fly in only one, anyway.
Those “oneworld airlines” don’t compete in many or maybe any markets. I mean look at the airlines. There is only one US carrier.
http://www.oneworld.com/ow/member-airlines