The founder of the popular conservative social media account Libs of TikTok has slammed Southwest Airlines for allegedly allowing a “big obese man” to invade his seat during a flight.
Chaya Reichik Got her personal X accountboasts more than 500,000 followers and shared his travel experiences on Sunday.
“I’m sitting wedged in the corner of the plane because this big obese guy is taking up half of my seat,” she complained. “I paid for her full seat instead of 1/2 seat.”
Lajczyk supplemented her post with a photo that appeared to show her seatmate’s right leg invading her personal space.
“He is violating @SouthwestAir’s own policies,” Ryczyk’s rant continued. “This is neither normal nor fair. If you can’t fit in one seat, you’ll have to buy two.”
Lajczyk was referring to the “heavy-bodied customer” policy that Southwest Airlines introduced last year, under which overweight customers whose bodies “encroach” on the armrests of their seats receive free second and even third place seats. You can request a seat.
The incendiary anti-LGBTQ+ activist tagged the airline in a post asking what could be done about the situation, and the post quickly went viral, garnering 2.8 million views as of Monday.
She then continued to post more photos and posts documenting her ordeal on the plane.
“He was also stuffing a cheeseburger and fries down his throat and dumping the garbage on the floor, disgusting fat slobber,” Ryczyk said, shuddering as he and his passenger were stuffed with empty Burger King soda cups. He shared a photo of it on the floor between them.
Laichke later revealed that the airline contacted her in response to her online complaint and offered her a $150 voucher for a future Southwest flight, but Laichke said she was disappointed in the airline’s generosity. He was unimpressed and dismissed it as “not worth it.”
“I’m never going to fly @SouthwestAir again. Even if I did, that wouldn’t be enough compensation for this. I’ve only flown Southwest about 3 times in my life as a last resort. Yes, I will. I will never do it again,” Laichik declared.
Conservative supporters later further explained why they would not use Southwest in the future.
“This incident in particular is not the reason why I hope to never fly Southwest again,” Ryczyk wrote. “Because I think it’s a terrible airline. Like I said, I’ve only flown a few times and they’ve all been under extreme conditions. Your options in this case are regular airline flights with long stopovers. It was a direct flight from either my company or Southwest Airlines.”
“If a scenario like this were to occur again, I’m starting to lean toward flying with a regular airline, even if there are stops, over Southwest,” she concluded.
