Southwest Announces 'Plus Size' Passengers Will Need to Purchase an Extra Seat, and it's Going Over With the Fats About as Well as You'd Expect
This clip of former fat man Tom Segura and admitted fat man Tim Dillon discussing the issues of plus-size tourism seems as relevant today as it was when they had the conversation two years ago for a couple of reasons.
First, for the way the legend of the Disney Plus Size Park Hoppers have (if you'll pardon the expression) burst onto the scene over the last year or so. Both on social media:
And some Barstool platforms:
Then there was the issue last week of "Fat Activists" and "Fat Scholars" objecting to medicines that help the people they supposedly advocate for be less fat:
And today the issue is more relevant than ever, thanks to the announcement from from the airline industry regarding this particular segment of their clientele. One carrier is making changes with respect to their morbidly obese passengers policy.
And it's going over as well as a flight of stairs or a garden salad with oil and vinegar:
NY Post - This change didn’t sit well with some.
Southwest Airlines’ popular “pick you own” seat perk isn’t the only policy on the chopping block. The budget carrier announced that a new measure that may require plus-size passengers to fork over extra dough.
Starting January 27, 2026, flyers who “encroach upon the neighboring seat” will be required to purchase an extra seat in advance, CBS News reported.
“To ensure space, we are communicating to Customers who have previously used the extra seat policy that they should purchase it at booking,” reps for the the low-cost airline said in a statement. …
Critics were quick to rip Southwest, which has long been seen as a haven for plus-size passengers.
Tigress Osborn, the executive director of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, deemed the overhaul changes “devastating” for plus-size flyers.
“Southwest was the only beacon of hope for many fat people who otherwise wouldn’t have been flying,” she lamented, per the New York Times. “And now that beacon has gone out.”
“I think it’s going to make the flying experience worse for everybody,” seconded Jason Vaughn, an Orlando-based travel agent who shares travel tips for plus-size tourists on his website Fat Travel Tested.
He analogized the makeover to Cracker Barrel’s much-maligned logo makeover.
“They have no idea anymore who their customer is,” the Southwest loyalist lamented. “They have no identity left.”
So Southwest is being accused of … what exactly? Abandoning their loyal, pre-diabetic customer base? Leaving them without an amputated foot to stand on? No longer being a bacon … "beacon of hope" for the Tigress Obsborns of the world?
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It's not enough that Tigress and Jason Vaughn has such a sense of entitlement that they think they're entitled to take up part of your side of the arm rest. They're actually such raging narcissists that they think this is going to make flying "worse for everybody."
Meaning whom, exactly? The person who's going to have an empty seat between themselves and the next person over with the 30-plus BMI? Who's going to have room to put their elbow out without it sinking into the flesh of some stranger's Bingo Flaps? Who's going to be able to make that journey from Raleigh-Durham to Logan without their hips touching someone's warm, sweaty thigh?
The analogy between this policy and Cracker Barrel removing both the Barrel and the old Cracker from their logo:
… is completely nonsensical. One is a restaurant chain appearing to betray its customer base by rejecting its branding as an old fashioned, family friendly, Middle America, country-style, comfort food emporium. The other is trying to spare the vast majority of its passengers from the torture of wearing another human being like a flesh tuxedo on a cross-country flight.
If that has been Southwest's "identity" all along, then they should've implemented this policy ages ago. If chunks like Osborn and Vaughn and the people they claim to represent have been choosing to fly SWA because they could invade someone else's personal space at no extra charge, then the only smart business strategy is to start charging them extra. Subtlely discourage them from flying with you before all you have are fatties.
Besides, nothing should offend an average-to-slightly above average traveler more than getting fined 50 bucks because your check-in bag is 51 pounds, only to see another passenger who weighs twice what you do, but has a 49 pound suitcase, roll onto the plane at no extra charge. Weight is weight. The jet doesn't care if it's that extra pair of jeans you packed or someone's thick cankles; gravity affects it just the same.
Sorry, everyone at Fat Travel Tested. But not sorry. I hate to break this to you, but Southwest knows exactly who their customer is. They know who it was becoming. And who they want it to be going forward. And it's not the ones who need the seat belt extenders and who will be impossible for the Baltimore-based flight crew to get through the exits in the event of an emergency. If you want to take up more than the space of a regular human, that's your right. You just have to pay for the privilege.