"Baby got back"? Beware of new Southwest policy

[Anonymous]

I wish they’d treat it like a rollercoaster with a sample seat before boarding. You don’t fit, you don’t ride.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very simple - never fly Southwest. All the advantages they had are now gone.

Exactly. Unless it's the only way for me to get a direct flight somewhere, I'm skipping it.

We all know they won't care for the big white dudes but the rest of us who are larger will be publicly humiliated.

Racist.

[Anonymous]

What about the skinny woman sitting next to me right now on my flight to Florida?

She’s having a hard time keeping her sharp elbows in her own space.

[Anonymous]

There is a new company called Fadass Airlines that ticks all the boxes, seats are ample, etc.

A flight from New York to LA is about $6,000 round trip, but we need to show our support for an airline willing to have huge seats and fly half as many passengers.

[Anonymous]

Other airlines make you buy extra seats too. If you don’t know this you don’t actually travel much.

[Anonymous]

Good. It sucks being squeezed in as someone takes a good portion of your seat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What about the 6'7" person who has slim hips but linebacker shoulders that extend well into the other seats?

I used to work with a guy who was built exactly like this. Once we were traveling together and he was sitting one row in front of me. When I saw him coming down the aisle I said to the woman already seated in his row "So, have you ever sat next to a 6'7" guy before?" and she replied "No...why do you ask?" This was a cross-country flight too. Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was on a flight recently in the window seat. The woman in the aisle seat was overweight and had purchased the middle and aisle seat. They told her they needed the seat. She said she had paid for both and they told her too bad and she'd be reimbursed. I think that's crap. She paid for two seats, she should have had two seats.

Yep. And it takes them 90 days to refund the money. What a scam! Three months of free capital for the company and three months of loss for the person.

Yeah, I've heard similar stories from obese people who truly do not WANT to be touching other folks nearby. They try to do the right thing and buy a second seat, but then the airline just overrides their purchase to get another human in that spot.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re not going to force anyone to buy a second seat unless it’s a truly egregious situation. It’s just a difference in the previous policy where they could just request a free extra seat at the gate. Now they have to pay for it and may or may not get money back.

I agree.

But for everyone on this board paying attention to Southwest's absolutely horrendous s***storm of a rollout of their new changes, keep that in mind the next time your company wants to hire a management consultant and avoid the one Southwest used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very simple - never fly Southwest. All the advantages they had are now gone.

Exactly. Unless it's the only way for me to get a direct flight somewhere, I'm skipping it.

We all know they won't care for the big white dudes but the rest of us who are larger will be publicly humiliated.

Racist.

Yes, the fact that white men get away with murder while the rest of us have our hips policed is both sexist and racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm small and when I traveled alone FA used to move me next to bigger passengers to make them fit. I had trouble saying no. It was miserable, I'd have my body crammed against the bulkhead or between two people and touched the whole time. My back would hurt from being crammed into half the seat. I don't fly solo as much anymore now I have kids.

I understand it's hard to be bigger, but as the person who's taken way more than my fair share of hits over this, I paid for my seat too and it just isn't my responsibility to give up part of my seat.

This is why I love to take the whole row with my family. All of us are short and relatively small and it's such a luxury not to have to share knee space with some clueless schmo who always takes the arm rest.

[Anonymous]

My DH is 6’4” and weighs 240. He’s not obese. He’s a big guy and goes to the gym. Unless he gets an exit row, every minute on that plane is painful. He works really hard not to encroach on the person next to him.

I’m a tiny person and I fit in those seats. I don’t know who those seats are built for. I feel like they’ve gotten smaller while many people have gotten bigger.

[Anonymous]

This isn’t just the airlines fault, if there was a market for an airline with higher ticket prices but larger and more comfortable seats, it would be filled. But in general there isn’t. When people shop for air travel, the vast bulk of people simply buy the cheapest fare available. This creates a competitive pressure to cram more people into smaller space. Airlines don’t have a huge profit margin, and it’s not at all clear there is much they can do about this. I think Warren Buffet said once that airlines, in the aggregate, have been a net destroyer of shareholder value since their inception. It’s a hugely capital intensive, thin-margin business, and this is the kind of product you get when customers overwhelmingly only care about price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t just the airlines fault, if there was a market for an airline with higher ticket prices but larger and more comfortable seats, it would be filled. But in general there isn’t. When people shop for air travel, the vast bulk of people simply buy the cheapest fare available. This creates a competitive pressure to cram more people into smaller space. Airlines don’t have a huge profit margin, and it’s not at all clear there is much they can do about this. I think Warren Buffet said once that airlines, in the aggregate, have been a net destroyer of shareholder value since their inception. It’s a hugely capital intensive, thin-margin business, and this is the kind of product you get when customers overwhelmingly only care about price.

]

There is such a market. It's called Business Class, and those seats are always sold out. The challenge for the airlines ins figuring our the correct proportion between business and economy seating to keep every seat sold. Not easy, but for now demand for business class seems to eclipse availability.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have a problem with this. As long as they don’t then try to claw back the “vacant” seats when they’re overbooked.