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CNN Live Saturday

Two Women Angered by Southwest Airlines' "Person of Size" Policy

Aired June 29, 2002 - 17:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Southwest Airlines is under fire for a policy of charging overweight passengers more. The Airlines says it has followed the policy of charging overweight passengers two fares for more than 20 years, but two women who recently came face-to-face with that policy are now preparing to fight it in court. Tom Vicar with our affiliate KTVU has their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM VICAR, KTVU CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Trina Oliver and Felicia Crawford are steaming in Las Vegas and it's not because the weather's hot. Last night, the two Bay area women went to Oakland Airport to begin a travel package they purchased from Southwest Airlines six weeks ago.

They both say they've traveled on Southwest before with no problems, but last night they ran head on into Southwest's so-called person of size policy.

TRINA OLIVER, PASSENGER: He looked at us and decided arbitrarily, these girls are too fat. You have to buy another seat.

FELICIA CRAWFORD, PASSENGER: I was not prepared to buy an extra ticket. He handed me back my ticket like, you know, sorry, you can't get on the plane.

VICAR: Ironically, the two women say they had to be in Las Vegas to model clothes at a Big Beautiful Women's Convention.

CRAWFORD: I said well the seats come three in a row, how about we split the middle seat.

OLIVER: One will sit on the aisle, one will sit by the window, you know, and then we'll, you know, we'll have that extra space, and they said no.

CRAWFORD: I was devastated. I was hurt. I've never experienced anything like that before in my life. So, what am I going to do lose everything? So, I bought the extra ticket.

VICAR: And so did Oliver.

OLIVER: You know, it seems like I should have known the criteria before, you know, purchasing the tickets and then I could have made my decision.

VICAR: Cory Opoka (ph) is Southwest's Assistant Station Manager here at Oakland.

CORY OPOKA, ASSISTANT STATION MANAGER: If one of our customers is flying on a discounted ticket, we will offer the same rate for the second additional seat. If one of our customers is flying on a full unrestricted fare ticket, we will offer the second seat at a child's fare.

VICAR: And says Opoka, here at Oakland Southwest has applied this policy to only one in every 12,000 passengers and has done it only for the safety and comfort of large passengers and those who sit beside them.

OPOKA: Once they purchase that ticket, if the flight is not full, they can apply for a refund of that ticket.

VICAR (on camera): Normally, would they get that refund, do you know?

OPOKA: Yes. Yes, definitely.

VICAR: Why is Southwest so insistent about getting as much revenue for each seat as possible? Well, consider this. This aircraft costs $15 million, and that means that this seat cost the airline $370,000. That's a big mortgage to pay off.

VICAR (voice over): In the summer, many of the airlines frequent flyers use their free tickets, which cuts revenue, and with Southwest's passenger loads just returning to pre-terror attack levels, every seat counts. But, the two women are not impressed.

CRAWFORD: We contacted a lawyer and we're going to do further investigation from that point.

VICAR: It's important to note that in the more than 20 years Southwest has had its person of size policy, the airlines says it's been sued over it five times. It has never lost.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And that was Tom Vicar of the Bay area's KTVU.

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