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15-FEB-2010

Kevin Smith 'too fat' to fly Southwest

By Bob Meadows, PEOPLE.com
February 15, 2010 10:49 a.m. EST

Kevin Smith has battled his weight for years and took to Twitter to talk about being kicked off a flight.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Airline officials said Smith's removal was for the "safety and comfort of all customers"
  
• Smith originally purchased two tickets, but decided to fly standby on an earlier flight
  
• He was given a $100 voucher and arrived in Burbank, California, on a later flight
  

(PEOPLE.com) -- 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 February 26, posted on Twitter.

It was one of many Tweets recounting the actor/director's humiliating expulsion Saturday from the Oakland-to-Burbank, California, flight.

Southwest said in a statement airline officials had called Smith to offer their "heartfelt apologies," but also stated his removal was for the "safety and comfort of all customers."

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.

"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," Southwest said.

I'm Fat

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...'"

After landing in Burbank, Smith wrote, "Don't worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised."

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.

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19-FEB-2010

Smelly passenger kicked off flight
By A. Pawlowski, CNN
February 19, 2010 10:28 a.m. EST

The incident reportedly happened on a regional airline in Canada. A spokeswoman confirms that a passenger was deplaned.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Regional airline in Canada reportedly kicked man off flight because of his body odor
  
• Another passenger described the smell as "brutal," newspaper reports
  
• Airline spokeswoman confirms that a passenger was "deplaned" from the flight
  
• She could not say why the person was asked to leave because of privacy reasons

(CNN) -- Air travelers already have to deal with unruly passengers, excessively talkative ones and many other types who make flying miserable.

But a new low may just have been reached for weary road warriors: The overwhelmingly smelly passenger.

A man on Jazz Air, a regional airline in Canada that also serves U.S. cities, was reportedly kicked off a plane earlier this month because of his strong body odor.

"People were just mumbling and staring at him," said a woman who sat near the man, according to The Guardian, a newspaper in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where the flight originated on February 6. It was a very uncomfortable situation, she added.

Another passenger described the smell as "brutal."

The man was an American visiting Prince Edward Island, the CBC reported.

Jazz Air spokeswoman Manon Stuart confirmed that a passenger was "deplaned" from the flight, but she could not provide specific information about the person involved or the reason why he was asked to leave because of privacy issues.

"As an airline, the safety and comfort of our passengers and crew are our top priorities. Therefore, any situation that compromises either their safety or comfort is taken seriously, and in such circumstances, the crew will act in the best interest of the majority of our passengers," Stuart said.

"It's important to understand that our crew members make every effort to resolve a situation before it becomes an issue. Unfortunately, in some circumstances, it may become necessary for our crew to remove passengers."

The airline, like most air carriers, doesn't have a specific policy covering body odor, Stuart said.

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From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/02/18/smelly.passenger/index.html?hpt=Sbin

BTW, the comments on this have been great. The people that actually travel on airplanes (i.e. everyone who is happy about this) are immediately apparent, as are the ones who haven't had this happen to them before (the ones that bemoan the loss of civil rights that this represents).

I've asked for pencil sharpeners from flight attendants when I was of a mind to jam a sharpened pencil in my ear to avoid "talker guy", I've asked the stewardperson not to slop "fat guy" and I've tranqed "stinkin' guy", slapped a tag on him and asked to have him shipped as excess baggage.