Dec 8, 2010 19:31 GMT  ·  By
Kevin Smith is fuming mad at Virgin Airlines for reportedly making him miss his flight
   Kevin Smith is fuming mad at Virgin Airlines for reportedly making him miss his flight

In February this year, actor-director Kevin Smith got into a very nasty exchange of words with Southwest Airlines after he was kicked off a flight for being too fat, as he also put it. He’s now going after Virgin Airlines after he missed his plane from New York.

As is his habit, Smith took to his official blog to complain about the entire experience and to blame Virgin for not being able to handle minor situations like his was.

In the lengthy post, Smith says he arrived at NYC’s John F. Kennedy airport in plenty of time, checked his luggage and then he, his wife, a friend and an “airport concierge” waited in the departure lounge.

The star says he got the concierge to help him get on board the plane in due time, since he had tickets in the first class and he didn’t want to be among the first to board because all the other travelers would then have been staring at him.

“When you fly first, you board first, sit down… and then EVERYONE files past you. And when you’re the Too Fat To Fly guy on a plane? Well, everyone stares. Then the whispering starts. A hundred people look right at you,” Smith explained.

So he decided to wait until everyone else was boarded and then he too could get on the plane to take his seat. However, when he arrived at the gate, the gate official told him he couldn’t board anymore – and then refused to have his luggage taken off the plane.

“Boarding started at 11:15, and we arrived at the gate at 11:35 – a full 10 minutes before scheduled departure. But as we reached the gate, we saw a man closing the door... We told him we were on the flight and he told us it was too late; the flight was closed. It was 11:36,” Smith explains.

They didn’t even call his name to let him know that boarding was closing, he says. Moreover, they didn’t even announce it, so, for all he knew, they could still be allowing people on board the plane.

Realizing there was no way to get on the flight, Smith asked the gate official and the concierge to at least get his bags off the plane because they also contained his wife’s medication and she needed it.

“They didn’t even TRY to call someone about getting the bags off. And still, the plane sat right there at the jetway still attached. Our bags could’ve EASILY been removed in the time that the jet remained parked at the gate (or we could’ve been permitted to board),” Smith blogs.

Smith and his wife got on a later flight, which Virgin offered for free, along with their apologies and a full refund but he’s learned his lesson from this.

“It’s not that your airline sucks: you guys are actually a top-notch operation […]. You are a great airline – but the wife and I will be avoiding you like the plague from now on,” Smith says in his post.