KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Across the country, headlines have surfaced regarding flyers having to buy extra tickets because of their weight on airlines.

One frequent flyer experienced that at Kansas City International Airport (KCI) less than a week ago.

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“Just remember you are always in charge of advocating for yourself,” said Kenny Slack. “So just do it.”

Slack is a frequent flyer from Houston who travels to train other hairstylist like himself, but recently, he had an interaction at KCI that he did not expect.

“I handed her my bag and my ID and she looked at her computer and looked at me and said, ‘Hey! We think that you need to buy an extra seat for this flight,” he said.

Slack had an early flight less than a week ago at KCI when this interaction took place.

Southwest staff told Slack he was in their system as someone who needed and extra seat. He was close to 400 lbs. last year, but since then has lost 100 lbs. So, he didn’t think he needed that accommodation anymore. He said the arm rest can go all the way down.

He posted the response to the interaction to TikTok, and 2.3 million people watched Kenny’s video about it. Over 300,000 liked it.

Slack said the interaction happened in front of other customers and that was inappropriate.

“Now we have a huge major player [Southwest], who is sitting here saying that we’re going to back our employees who are wanting to discriminate for literally whatever reason they’re feeling that day,” Slack said.

Southwest, American and United all have a passenger size policy. Along with other airlines.

According to a Southwest spokesperson in relation to this issue:

“The policy says that airline staff have the latitude to require the customer to purchase an additional seat if they determine the customer meets the criteria. With the advent of assigned seating, we are working to ensure the comfort and safety of all our customers.”

That includes making sure the arm rest in an airline seat can go completely down. FOX4 asked other flyers how they felt.

“I think its slightly judgmental in that aspect but just make sure that everyone is comfortable,” passenger Sherri Fox said.

” I think the airline needs to come up will a standardization for that,” said Martin Cowick, another passenger.

Slack says Southwest has not reached out to him despite being tagged multiple times in the post. Ultimately, they let him go on board without paying for the extra seat.

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His message to southwest:

“Be more tactful and more respectful and courteous of all of us that patron your airplane services.”

If you need a list of policies from these top airlines, click the links below:

Southwest

American

United

Delta

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