A change in Southwest Airlines’ seating policy has many advocates for the plus-size community saying the shift will create financial burdens and other barriers for this segment of the traveling public.
For the last decade, Jen McLellan has been a customer of Southwest Airlines because its “customer of size” policy allowed her to ride with dignity, she said in a post on Instagram.
Currently, travelers who “encroach upon neighboring seats” are encouraged to purchase an extra seat in advance of the flight to ensure it will be available. Upon request, Southwest has refunded the cost of the additional seat after travel.
The airline recently announced that, effective Jan. 27, the refund is no longer guaranteed.
A refund will be issued if the following conditions are met:
- When the flight departs, it has at least one open seat.
- The traveler purchased two seats in the same fare class; both tickets need to be choice, choice preferred, choice extra or basic.
- A refund request is made within 90 days of the date of travel.
Alaska is the only other major U.S. airline that offers a refund on an extra seat, as long as there’s at least one open seat on the flight at takeoff.
Southwest’s current policy was something McLellan cherished, the traveler said in her post. It eased her mind that she wouldn’t be the next “viral video of someone upset about sitting next to the fat passenger.”
It wasn’t just about her own comfort or that of her neighbors; she said it was an issue of accessibility.
Fliers in the plus-size community knew that, on top of the guaranteed refund, customers could easily reserve an empty seat and were met with compassion from customer service agents.
The customer-of-size policy “helped ease what too often feels humiliating,” McLellan wrote. “That’s why the recent changes are heartbreaking.”
The change comes as Southwest is updating many of its policies to prepare its operation, employees and customers for the switch to assigned seating next year, the airline told The Times in a statement.
Southwest estimated that fewer than 1% of its customers request an extra seat annually. The airline had about 140 million passengers in 2024.
“To ensure space, we are communicating to customers who have previously used the extra seat policy they should purchase it at booking,” a spokesperson for the company said.
Airplane seats are not one-size-fits-all. In fact, fewer than half of travelers can reasonably fit in seats, according to FlyersRights, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights and interests of airline passengers, USA Today reported.
In 2018, the Federal Aviation Administration was tasked with setting a minimum passenger-seat size by Congress, but airline trade groups were opposed, and in 2023, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the seats may be uncomfortable but aren’t dangerous.
At this time, there isn’t a minimum seat-size requirement.
The width of passenger seats vary from 15.5 to 19 inches, depending on the airline and the section of the plane.
Southwest made incremental accessibility changes for plus-size travelers over the course of 15 years, said Tigress Osborn, executive director of the National Assn. to Advance Fat Acceptance. The incident that, in part, pushed the airline in this direction, she said, was its removal of film director Kevin Smith from a flight in 2010 because the captain deemed Smith a “safety risk” to other passengers.
After the changes, the airline “staked this claim as, ‘We are the airline where plus-size passengers are welcome,’” Osborn told The Times. The attitude was, “We’re going to figure out a way to make this work so that you can fly, and even if that means working with other passengers,” she added, referring to volunteers who would board a later flight to free up a seat.
Removing the refund guarantee on top of the addition of assigned seating feels like a huge reversal, she said.
Osborn and other advocates believe the policy changes are going to come at the cost of plus-size travelers who may not be able to afford two seats.
“There’s been this economic downturn, and people are way more conservative with their money. So I think what this does is make people question if they should [fly] or not,” said Jeff Jenkins, founder of Chubby Diaries.
It’s also going to add to the anxiety of figuring out all the logistics surrounding travel for the community, Jenkins said.
Now travelers will have to think about whether they can reserve two seats next to each other with Southwest’s implementation of assigned seating. That stacks onto other concerns of travel including needing a seat belt extender, where to purchase affordable plus-size clothes if luggage is lost, the distance from the airport entrance to the terminal, and seat accessibility on public transportation.
Osborn said she felt the change was due to companies generally making financial cutbacks and “the overall spirit in corporate America of, ‘The things we said were important like diversity and inclusion don’t have to be important in the same way anymore.’”
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