southwest

Southwest Airlines has come under fire for its controversial policy change which can require plus-size passengers to purchase an extra seat at the airline’s “sole discretion”, with furious travellers branding it “discrimination”

A so-called “fat tax” aimed at plus-size airline passengers has left travellers furious and feeling “stressed”. Major carrier Southwest Airlines has found itself at the centre of controversy over its contentious new policy, which can compel passengers to shell out for an additional seat at its “sole discretion”.

The policy change comes after 30 years of letting plus-sized passengers request a complimentary extra seat at the gate, and reimbursing those who purchased one in advance – a practice that has now been scrapped.

Under the new rules, customers will only receive a refund for a second seat if their flight departs with at least one empty seat, while those who failed to book ahead can be forced to purchase another ticket on the spot.

In a statement addressing the policy change, a Southwest spokesperson said: “To ensure space, we are communicating to customers who have previously used the extra seat policy that they should purchase it at booking.”

On the airline’s website, the updated “customer of size” policy reads: “Customers who encroach upon the neighboring seat(s) must purchase the number of seats needed. Customers should purchase the seats prior to travel to ensure adjacent seats are available.

“The armrest is considered to be the definitive boundary between seats; you may review information about the width of Passenger seats. In addition, Southwest may determine, in its sole discretion, that an additional seat is necessary for safety purposes.”

But passengers are far from happy. Influencer Samyra Miller turned to TikTok to criticise the policy, branding it a “fat tax”.

She said: “They’ve been doing this way before their little new policy was even supposed to go into effect because, remember, they kicked me off my flight in December.”

She revealed a Southwest representative privately messaged her after she shared her negative experience online and continued: “My primary concern with that whole back and forth with Southwest was for how they were about to treat their plus size customers in changing their customer of size policy.”

Samyra referred to the wording of the policy on the Southwest website but claimed, at the airport, “they’re just eyeing people”. The content creator went on: “There is no criteria that they are using to determine who has to pay for an extra seat.”

Describing it as “discrimination”, Samyra continued: “It is literally just at the discretion of and fatphobia of whoever is working that day.”

In the comments section, people were eager to share their opinions. One TikTok user said: “This is absolutely horrible!”

Another said: “We have a company trip in May and I told my boss to use any other airline BUT Southwest.”

A third posted: “I have a flight in 5 days I AM STRESSED I DON’T have more money to buy an extra seat”.

While another added: “This isn’t fair at all”.

Fellow TikTok user Sassa Ésmith uploaded a video prior to a Southwest flight and added text overlay which read: “Shoutout to Southwest for contributing to my traveling anxiety with your superfluous ‘customer of size policy'”.

In the caption, she said: “Spent my entire lobby time mentally preparing for a random gate agent to tell me I gotta buy an additional seat for a 40 minute flight”.

A SOUTHWEST Airlines flight has been diverted and forced to do an emergency landing after a mid-air security threat.

Flight 2094 from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale was forced to cut the journey short and land at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at 9:06pm on Friday night.

While thousands of feet in the air, a security threat was reported which saw tactical cops storm the aircraft upon landing and detain a passenger.

A video allegedly taken on board the flight showed the moment a man was dragged off the flight by the Atlanta Police Department.

The clip shared on X showed terrified passengers with their hands raised above their heads as cops cuffed a passenger and took him off the aircraft.

The text on the clip claimed that there had been a bomb threat but this has not been commented on by the airline or police.

In a statement, Southwest said the diversion came due to a “possible security matter.”

“We appreciate the professionalism of our flight crew and sincerely apologize to our customers for the significant delay,” the spokesperson said.

“Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees.”

The Atlanta Police Department confirmed it worked with federal partners to attend to “last night’s incident” at the airport.

The nature of the security threat and if the passenger removed will face any charges remains unclear.

It is not known if the passenger is still in police detention.

Officials have not commented if any dangerous items were found onboard.

After the police activity, all passengers boarded another plane and continued their journey to Fort Lauderdale where they arrived safely just before 3:30am.

The airline has apologized to all affected passengers.

It comes as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains on shutdown over funding disagreements which former Security Secretary Kristi Noem said is “endangering national security.”

The DHS has been shut down since February 14 which Noem said has negatively impacted and put huge pressure on TSA and border patrol.

In addition to this, Republicans have warned that the country is under an increased domestic terror threat due to the recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

“Now is the time to be vigilant at home and to ensure that all of our doors are locked, so to speak,” Speaker Mike Johnson, warned on Wednesday as he discussed the continued shutdown.

“Senate needs to fund the TSA. They’ve had them the Coast Guard, FEMA and Cybersecurity CISA on shut down for 3 weeks. We will surely see more of this,” one viewer of the footage from the diverted aircraft said.

“Unfortunately there’s going to be a lot more of this coming,” another said.