Told to buy 2 seats, woman sues Southwest, claims racial discrimination

Concord – An African-American woman claims Southwest Airlines unfairly subjected her to its policy requiring large passengers to buy two seats because of her race, a lawyer said yesterday at the start of her federal trial against the airline.

Nadine Thompson of Exeter, president of a cosmetics company, sued Southwest in federal court for discrimination in 2004, saying the company doesn’t uniformly enforce its policy requiring obese passengers to buy two seats.

Thompson, who had flown on Southwest frequently, was on her way to a business conference in Chicago in June 2003 when she boarded her flight at Manchester Airport. Not long after she took a seat in the back of the plane, put the arm rest down and buckled her seat belt, an employee she saw at the check-in counter asked her to get off, Thompson’s lawyer, Neil Osborne, said in opening statements.

Nadine Thompson, president, CEO and co-founder of Warm Spirit Inc. beauty and wellness company in Exeter, is suing Southwest Airlines. (DAVID LANE) She was told at the plane’s loading bridge she needed to buy a second seat for “her comfort and safety,” Osborne said, even though no one was sitting next to her. At the time, the 5-foot-8-inch Thompson weighed between 300 and 330 pounds, according to court records.

When Thompson asked for an explanation, she didn’t get one. “It was never made clear to her that she was too big to fit in her seat,” Osborne told the six-person jury.

She refused to leave and decided to return to her seat. An employee told her that if she left, Southwest would give her a refund, Osborne said. She declined, but she became increasingly agitated and decided to leave — only to be met outside the plane by a few Southwest employees and two Rockingham County Sheriff’s deputies. At that point, she started yelling at the group, at times using profanity.

“Did you ask me to purchase another ticket because I’m too fat to sit in the seat? Did you ask me to purchase another ticket because I’m a black woman?” Thompson said, according to court records.

Thompson, who got a refund, said she was humiliated and suffered emotional distress. “Southwest just asked me to get off the plane either because I’m too fat or too black or just a woman,” she said to people as she was being led to the ticket counter, according to court records.

“This is not a case about weight discrimination,” he said. “This suit is about the inappropriate application of a policy in a discriminatory manner.”

Garry Lane, a Southwest lawyer, said the airline’s “customer of size” policy, introduced in 2002 in response to “squished customer” complaints and safety concerns about evacuations, wasn’t written clearly at the time. Employees made some mistakes in explaining it, but did not act out of racial bias, he said.

The policy specifically didn’t require Thompson to buy a second seat after she was allowed to board, but employees mistakenly had told her that she had to, Lane said.

“It has to be handled discreetly,” Lane said of the passenger-seat issue. “It’s part of the company’s policy.”

The employees who spoke to Thompson made sure the loading bridge was clear of other customers before they asked her to come out, he said. Also, they had noticed her when she boarded the plane, but found it difficult to judge if she needed to buy another seat without seeing her sit down, he said.

The policy states that a customer of size is someone who can’t sit in a seat without having the armrest raised and is sitting on part of the seat next to him. Lane said the Southwest employees will testify that they saw the armrest up most of the time and that Thompson was sitting on part of the adjacent seat.

Lane said none of the workers ever shouted at Thompson, used profanity or touched her. The deputies, who handle security at the airport, did not handcuff her and helped her make flight arrangements to Chicago via another airline, he said.

Technical airline term:

COS

Customer of Size (overweight passenger requiring two economy-class airline seats)

"From a disgruntled Southwest Airlines employee.... "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX, to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt, and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more. Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but they'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, noboby loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines."

Forbes.com

Airlines

Why Airlines Can't Cut The Fat
Lisa DiCarlo, 10.24.02, 11:55 AM ET

There aren't many times when the airline industry deserves public sympathy, but the current flap over whether and how to deal with overweight passengers is a no-win situation.

The latest dustup involves a woman flying from London to Los Angeles on Virgin Atlantic in 2001. She apparently suffered leg injuries after being seated next to an obese woman who spilled over into her seat, reportedly squashing her. This week, Virgin paid the woman $20,000 in compensation, but the company is not changing its policy on overweight passengers. That is, Virgin is not planning to charge obese passengers for extra seats if they don't fit.

The airlines are in an impossible situation here, and appear to be caving into political correctness: catering to the complaints of a vocal minority while ignoring the comfort of the majority.

"Southwest got into trouble saying, if you are too big, you have to buy two tickets," says Dr. Adam Pilarski, an airline consultant at Avitas. "Various organizations that represent the calorically challenged had a freak attack over this, saying they're discriminating against those that may have a medical condition."

In June, Southwest Airlines (nyse: LUV - news - people ) began enforcing a longstanding rule of charging extra-large passengers for two seats. One month later, an obese brother and sister threatened to sue after they were denied boarding when they refused to buy extra seats. The airline later refunded the cost of the original flight and apologized, saying the siblings were not asked to pay for extra seats at the time of purchase.

Southwest spokesman Ed Stewart says the problem in that particular case was one of consistency. The siblings were not asked to purchase extra seats on the outbound flight because it was half empty. The issue arose on the inbound, when the plane was filled to capacity.

"You must be consistent," says Stewart. "We sell the second seat at a reduced rate, which the customer gets back immediately if the flight isn't full."

The issue is, of course, a delicate one for airline employees to approach with obese passengers. Should people be sized up by gate agents, or asked their weight as part of those pointless security questions?

The bottom line is there is no delicate way to handle the situation, no matter how comfortable someone feels with their weight. This puts airlines in an impossible spot, one that seems to favor political correctness.

"I have a legitimate beef if someone that's 300 pounds takes up a third of my seat," says Pilarski. "The airlines are caving into political correctness, but they have no choice."

Organizations and individuals that oppose the practice of double charging make the argument that people who "disturb" passengers in other ways should also be charged. For example: parents with crying babies, blind people with guide dogs, or even people with unpleasant body odor.

As annoying as those things may be, they aren't in the same category as the physical discomfort caused by being squished into a coach-class seat that, on average, measures only 19 inches across.

It's unlikely that this problem will be fixed. That's because airlines will want to avoid the publicity and potential embarrassment of forcing passengers to pay for a second seat or even denying them boarding. It's even less likely that cash-strapped airlines (several of which are fighting for their very survival) will retrofit their planes with wider seats to accommodate large customers.

Southwest's Stewart doesn't put much credence in any lawsuits that have sprung up from the rule. "The customer takes the hanky out and claims [he has] suffered mightily. This is a non-issue [that] gets attention for the entertainment value."

That may be true, but with obesity in America reaching epidemic proportions, more "average"-sized people can expect to be squeezed in coach class in the coming years.

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