Southwest: Too Fat to Fly

Kevin Smith

Here’s where Southwest Airlines really fumbled in handling its customer and social media crisis caused when filmmaker Kevin Smith was kicked off one of its flights because he was deemed to be too fat for one seat:

Southwest responded in a traditional, predictable and completely ineffective method. Rather than the airline’s CEO Gary Kelly acting like a leader, apologizing and putting an end to the online image and media crisis for his airlines, Kelly left it up to the in-house PR and Twitter staff to attempt to patch things up with Smith. Not surprisingly, it did not work.

If Southwest had turned to its PR firm for help, chances are the support was minimal because most agencies are not skilled at working in the online world or social media. The larger the PR agency, the greater the lack of competence.

It all begin early on Valentine’s Day when Smith (Twitter: @ThatKevinSmith) was asked to leave a flight before it departed. The pilot reportedly thought Smith was too fat. Smith walked back into the terminal and begin Tweeting to his 1.5 million followers:

“Dear @SouthwestAir — I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

Additional Tweets came fast and furious from Smith, who also posted a 90 minute podcast to explain the whole episode.

Since then, mainstream media and online media coverage has spun out of control for Southwest Airlines, largely because the airline has been hiding behind prepared statements posted on the company Web site like the one below. CEO Kelly has acted like an old-school corporate executive with either disdain or lack of awareness for the influence of today’s digital era.

What it all signals is a lack of savvy corporate leadership and not an intelligent comprehension over the importance and power of online social media by Southwest. Any company that hides behind prepared statements is asking for brand reputation problems to continue … and recovery from such self-inflicted damage to brand reputation will be costly. And, it could have been avoided.

Should Southwest CEO Kelly come out of the shadows to act as a leader, the voice and face of his airline? Yes. That’s the responsibility of authentic corporate leaders in today’s world, regardless of whether responding to a filmmaker, like Kevin Smith, or any time his company screws up. It’s called being accountable and responsible. Kelly is signaling that he does not understand his role.

Category: Crisis Communications, Featured, Reputation management