{"id":49731,"date":"2023-12-14T22:21:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T03:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49731"},"modified":"2023-12-14T22:21:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T03:21:57","slug":"no-way-this-doesnt-backfire-on-southwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49731","title":{"rendered":"No way this doesn\u2019t backfire on Southwest"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Good intentions, unwinnable situation<\/a>: Southwest Airlines becomes only airline to accommodate larger passengers with complimentary adjacent seats<\/span><\/p>\n

How it works: plus-size travelers either purchase two fares on Southwest in advance, or purchase one fare; either way, at the airport, they have to speak speak to a representative to discuss accommodation, be allowed to occupy two seats.\u00a0 If they purchased two in advance, they can be retroactively be refunded one fare, or if they purchase one fare, speak to someone at the airport and get a second one for free; airline reserves the right to exorcise the benefit or shift other passengers based on availability.<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, I do think it\u2019s cool that Southwest Airlines for making this choice to be accommodating to larger passengers.\u00a0 It is a decision made on empathy, positivity and inclusion, and in the calculation of the business world, it\u2019s a choice that will all but ensure that larger travelers will be looking at Southwest first, with them likely to make some bank on the fact that they\u2019ll probably buy two Southwest fares knowing they can be refunded for one of them based on their girth, as opposed to buying two fares on any other airline and not getting any recompense.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I also just think that Southwest is opening a can of worms, and has created something that will inevitably be abused and met with a lot of opposition, hostility and negativity by all other travelers who don\u2019t fall into the same large category of those that this is intended to accommodate, almost like an ironic reverse form of discrimination.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the buffest, most swole guy on the planet, not by a long shot, but when I sit back and am in a relaxed sitting position, my shoulders often times creep over the plane of space that is the armrest.\u00a0 When traveling with mythical wife, this is mitigated because she is petite and I can just raise the armrest and we can lean on each other, or share our adjacent space, but the fact of the matter is that regular old me, could constitute a person who \u201cencroach past the armrest\u201d which is the language that Southwest\u2019s policy declares as being criteria to receive the large person BOGO, as I\u2019d like to call it as politically correct as I care to speak it.<\/span><\/p>\n

This policy just seems like it\u2019s begging to be abused by all sorts of people, mostly active, muscular, tall and other physically large people whom might not necessarily be overweight, but still with bodies capable of taking up a lot of space.\u00a0 And considering the fact that airline seats are tuna can sized to begin with, I don\u2019t think it would take a tremendous amount of arguing for people to think they can lay claim to the large person BOGO as much as a person who tried out for My 600 Lb. Life<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Already, there are instances of the backlash of giving larger folks free bonus seats, as cited by the example of a woman and her kids who were bumped off an oversold flight because one or more larger passengers were getting free extra seats.\u00a0 And this is where it\u2019s really a nobody wins situation, because I understand that large passengers go through a lot of shit already, flying in an airplane doesn\u2019t make it any easier, but at the same time, as a person with a lot of miles flown in my life, I know the general frustration of the traveling process to begin with, and can understand the frustration that must bubble up when you have to sit next to a large person who encroaches on your space or denies you the ability to board outright.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, as altruistic of a policy this is meant to be, it\u2019s still going to be subject to the opinions of live human beings that oversized travelers will have to subject themselves to when they are at the airport and wish to plead their cases.\u00a0 Imagine the general sense of spectacle and embarrassment many already go through having to go to the counter to discuss the large person BOGO, but imagine how much worse it would be if the person at the gate is having a bad day or is someone who\u2019s in no mood to be empathetic of a large person\u2019s size, and then they deny the second seat, or they prioritize parties over a large person.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody wins in these cases either, and it\u2019s only a matter of time before Southwest gets sick and tired of dealing with all the headaches, complaints, accusations of abusing rules, and other negative connotation before they decide to punt on the program outright, and large passengers are back to either purchasing two seats and taking a financial hit, or risking denigration and humiliation when they get seated next to a Karen who live-tweets their misery at being sat next to a large person on an entire flight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, it\u2019s cool that Southwest is trying to be more inclusive than all the other airlines, but the airline industry is already one of the most miserable and volatile experiences for people in the first place, trying to rock the boat to this magnitude just seems like an idea that\u2019s just begging to backfire with catastrophic results.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good intentions, unwinnable situation: Southwest Airlines becomes only airline to accommodate larger passengers with complimentary adjacent seats How it works: plus-size travelers either purchase two fares on Southwest in advance, or purchase one fare; either way, at the airport, they have to speak speak to a representative to discuss accommodation, be allowed to occupy two … Continue reading No way this doesn\u2019t backfire on Southwest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117,79,45,120,52,146,49],"class_list":["post-49731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-airports","tag-cashmoney","tag-fail","tag-fat-people","tag-owned","tag-triggered","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49732,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49731\/revisions\/49732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}