Join in the fight for fair airfare with
NAAFA!
Dear NAAFA members, family and friends,
No doubt many of you are aware of the current
media storm surrounding the decision by Southwest Airlines to enforce their
requirement for large passengers to purchase two seats. Southwest will begin requiring all
passengers who can’t get the armrest down or require a seatbelt extender
to purchase two seats regardless of whether the flight is full. Southwest promises refunds AFTER travel
is complete to those passengers who purchased two seats on flights that
didn’t end up being booked to capacity.
There is a great deal of information and
misinformation floating around regarding the policy. For your reference, you may wish to read the Policy for
Larger Southwest Passengers on their website at www.southwest.com.
NAAFA is fortunate in receiving support for
our rights as consumers from nationally known author, radio and television
personality and consumer advocate David Horowitz. Mr. Horowitz is probably best known from his nationally
syndicated program, “Fight Back!”
Horowitz, recently had NAAFA spokesperson
Sandie Sabo on his "Fightback!" radio show recently. On two successive Sunday evenings
Horowitz and Sabo fielded calls from people about the Southwest Airlines
policy. They also received many
supportive calls from flyers of all sizes that feel the Southwest policy is
wrong.
Mr. Horowitz has expressed interest in helping
us in any way he can in our cause, including the generous use of his
www.fightback.com website to vent and post our comments regarding the Southwest
issue. In addition, as Southwest
doesn't have an e-mail address on their site, Mr. Horowitz has offered to send
your posts via
regular mail to Southwest.
Mr. Horowitz has also agreed to devote a full
page on the Fight Back! website to the ongoing Southwest Airline
controversy. It should be up by
Wednesday or Thursday 7/3 or 7/4. NAAFA will supply them with updates, news
relating to the problem; i.e. getting a current count on the folks who had to
pay for 2nd seats, experiences of members dealing with the airlines on the
issue, etc. NAAFA members (as well as any larger flyer who has had an
experience with Southwest that they would like to share), may e-mail their
experiences to NAAFA at:
"mabnaafa@aol.com".
Many of you have expressed interest in helping
increase awareness on this issue and making your feelings known. Here are some things you can do:
1. Go to the fightback.com website, and click on the feedback forum. You will have to register to post, but
the more posts the better. Once in the Feedback Forum, click on the link for
Airlines.
2. Email any information that you are willing to share regarding your air
travel to "mabnaafa@aol.com".
Please include the complete and correct spelling of your name and
whether or not you are available to do print, radio or television
interviews. If you are available
for interviews, please leave COMPLETE contact information where you can be
reached. (Please include daytime
and home phone numbers.)
3. Southwest Airlines has stated in the media that they “receive very
few complaints from large people regarding this policy.” Make sure your voice is heard! You can contact Southwest Airlines
directly to ask for clarification on points of the policy and express your
concern. Feel free to share any
personal complaints or stories that relate to your experience with their
airline. Southwest's contact information is:
Customer
Relations (214) 792-4223 Hours 8:00AM-5:00PM Central
SWA
Fax (214) 792-5099
Reservations
(800)-I-FLY-SWA
Address:
Southwest Airlines P.O. Box 36647-1CR, Dallas, TX 75235
Mr. Horowitz also suggests:
1. Make sure your elected representatives hear your opinion about serious consumer
issues! Locate your state's members of the United States Senate, by visiting
their federal web site, www.senate.gov. Each individual representative presents
their own preferred contact method.
2. To locate your local representative of the United States House of
Representatives, and also to generate an e-mail to him or her, simply access
their web site at www.house.gov/writerep.
3. For contact information for both federal and state legislators, as well
as links to issues under debate, check out www.Congress.org
This story represents unprecedented media
attention for NAAFA and the Fat Acceptance movement. Please do your part to make things better for fat people
everywhere.
(If you would like to hear the two Fightback!
radio shows where the Southwest issue was discussed, from the Fightback.com
site you can click on the Archived Programs button.)