Hot on the heels of my Winning Airline Twitter Strategies post is a story hot off the Twitter feed.
Normally a complaint regarding an airline’s overweight policy wouldn’t really get much traction on Twitter, but when that passenger is Kevin Smith, actor, director and Tweeter with 1.6 million followers, then you’ve got a veritable Twitter war of words.
This is the kind of social media firestorm that every marketing manager dreads.
It seems the issue started when Smith was told he had to leave the plane because he is over-sized.
That resulted in a number of other tweets that describe the situation from Smith’s point of view.
Smith goes on a bit of rant (justified or not) about the way he feels he was treated by Southwest during the incident. From the tweets, it appears that he got on to another Southwest flight without incident but because he was already in a bad mood, he continued to comment.
So now that the Southwest brand has been frontally assaulted on Twitter, what are the poor people behind the @southwestair twitter account to do? Well, what would you do if Smith came up to your counter and yelled at you?
In my opinion, @southwestair ‘s response to the @kevinsmith comments on Twitter were timely and appropriate.
Will the way that @southwestair dealt with the situation on Twitter mitigate the potential damage caused by Smith’s tirade? That remains to be seen.
The oversized passenger debate is current, hot, and highly controversial. Smith’s incident on Southwest is probably not a singular event and there are probably many other passengers on many other airlines that have had similar experiences.
Whether he chose to or not, Smith is now a very vocal spokesperson for oversized passengers. Unfortunately, it happened on Southwest and in front of over a million followers.
Related posts:
- Is the Southwest social media strategy super awesome or just common sense?
- Social media gap: DOT fines airlines on tarmac delay — Continental Airlines what say you?
- How to win with an airline Twitter strategy
- Tnooz List: 50 travel companies and the Twitter follow-follower ratio debate
- My unsolicited social-media advice for Continental Airlines
About Stephen Joyce
The only losers are those that don’t have 1 million followers listening to their plea, and those that have abused their platforms. Humanizing your company on Social Media ALWAYS wins.
Good Marketing? Great Brand? How well is your Social Media working when it’s 5pm on a Saturday night and a famous director has been just thrown off your plane? How Southwest Air responded is changing the face of PR and Social Media:
http://www.girlmeetsgeek.com/?p=701
No. The only real losers are those of us who are overweight and don’t have the stature of Mr. Smith to rate a phone call from a SWA Vice-President.
I sincerely doubt it. I’ll just have to settle for the $100 voucher and public humiliation.
Okay, I don’t see what the big deal is? The captain has the final call onboard an airplane, thats just how it goes. I am impressed with Southwest for not making exceptions based on the number of twitter followers a person has, if they did I would be very disappointed.
Sorry, but i’m with southwest As a thin and healthy Australian I must say i’m sick to death of fat people ruining the world. You stink, your ugly and you DO take up too much room on an airline. I’m sick of paying extra for your fat asses…!!!
@SaXoN – Not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not?!
If not, I’m sure those you criticise would simply say something about your spelling errors taking up too much room in comment sections.
What spelling errors??
Trollin’ at its finest.
“your ugly” should be “you are” or “you’re”. Sorry. Guess you weren’t being sarcastic then.
Touche’…
Back on-topic…
Forgetting the actual incident for a moment, the way Southwest has handled this on Twitter seems pretty good, given how quickly out of control these things have gone recently [See recent Vodafone storm, which not only started on Twitter but wasn't fixed in the same channel as the company cut and pasted responses to everyone, thus indicating that they didn't really care].
Now, of course, the Twitterati might kick in again today (the timing of Smith’s ire was quite fortunate for Southwest), but the topic never ‘trended’ and storm averted maybe.
Now, imagine if this had happened to Avatar director James Cameron (who admittedly is rather more svelt-like than Smith) on the eve of the Oscars, and things might be different.
If you’re interested in seeing what the reaction is on Twitter in real-time, take a look at the responses here:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%40southwestair
After having a night to think about, I have come to the conclusion that I do agree with the policy, but there has been no steps taken to implement it properly. If you do not have clear guidelines or procedure in place, how can you possibly enforce something?
Im sure it will change after this.
I think Southwest owes him a lot more than a $100 Voucher and an apology, Southwest is the last airline I would consider buying a ticket from right now and yes I’m telling all my friends of every size to take their business elsewhere. They need to get ready to see their ticket sales go down and hopefully another airline will learn from their mistake and let people of size know they are actually welcome to travel on their airline without being in fear of being humiliated and discriminated against while travelling. Kathy Hernandez-Club Catalina-San Diego
As promised, Kevin Smith has posted his latest Smodcast titled “Go F**k Yourself, Southwest Airlines”. What’s your take?
http://www.smodcast.com/
As usual, Kevin Smith’s unprofessional attitude will discredit his story.
I used to follow him when I first started on Twitter, but had to stop as I was tired of his childish rants and disgusting tweets. I think people should take this guy with a grain of salt.
Spot on… He is also a cry baby.
I have seen a similar incident on SWA, unfortunately, the person didn’t have the clout to create a storm like this. I am amazed Kevin actually got off without help and wasn’t dragged off by the security!
Having been forced into the wall for two hours on a plane by an overly large man sitting next to me, I agree that Kevin Smith should be made to pay for an extra seat. Maybe it is also a wake-up call for those obese Americans to slim down and save those of us more moderately shaped people the agony of uncomfortable flights.