Sandra “Pepa” Denton, half of Salt ‘n Pepa perhaps best known for safe sex and anti-censorship anthem Let’s Talk About Sex, was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Nashville after refusing to give up a seat she had purchased.
The rap legend purchased two seats for extra space, which she needs because of continued pain from a 2018 car crash knee injury. She had wheelchair assistance. However a flight attendant told her she couldn’t have both seats. She had a knee brace, but not a cast.
The airline offered to move her to an extra legroom seat. She stood her ground, and was going to keep both seats but then “a man arrived and asked Pepa to give him her 2nd seat, claiming he was headed to a funeral.” But he wouldn’t stick to his story about the funeral.
The airline booted her, though, for ‘failing to follow crewmember instructions’. Those instructions appear to have been to stop filming the interaction. Southwest reportedly refunded her tickets.
Have flight attendants turned into Gustapo? Seems like we are seeing it more and more. I agree with some of their actions; but a purchased seat is a purchased seat…
Southwest has flushed themselves into the sewer with Delta.
Wait a second. CUSTOMER purchases two seats. For the duration of the flight, she “owns” those as she PAID for them. Exceptions do happen and the airline could ASK if she would CONSIDER giving up her extra seat for some sort of compensation. However, she stood her ground. Good for her. Granted, crew member instructions must be followed (and the law backs it up) but this “Instruction” had nothing to do with safety or security of the flight. This was a “convenience” or request to accommodate another passenger. Unless there are mitigating issues that we don’t know about, the deplaned passenger needs to read the WN contract of carriage to make sure but then follow up with a strong letter to the FAA & its “boss” the Department of Transportation and, for good measure…her elected officials (not that they do much good but…). Never use a fly swatter when a brick can do it better.
Your linked article from TMZ says, “According to her, Southwest agents attempted to move her into the bulkhead emergency row, which she declined. Remember, her boarding passes were marked “disabled” … so, if there were an emergency, she couldn’t assist!!!”
U.S. law requires air carriers operating flights to, from, or through the United States to provide the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with certain passenger reservation information, called Passenger Name Record (PNR) data.
I’d like to know if other airlines besides Southwest Airlines add a unique designator to passenger boarding passes, including the shared PNR reservation information with terms such as disabled, differently abled, handicapped, physically handicapped, physically impaired, crippled, lame, incapacitated, impaired, paralyzed, quadriplegic, paraplegic, having a mental disability, having a learning disability, or physically challenged.
Re Ken A
I doubt it because when you make a reservation, be it online or by telephone, that question simply does not come up. We have made close to a thousand WR reservations, so I speak from experience. The only time it comes up is if you ask for pre board for disability or if you wish to sit in an exit row. I don’t know about other airlines because my experience with them is more limited.
Tipper Gore wanted her booted.
@GUWonder: Dee Snider is applauding.
WN boarding passes would say “PREBD” or whatever it is… that means if you get on with preboard you can’t sit in the exit row.
I thought WN didn’t oversell flights. Or maybe they didn’t used to. The second seat should show as paid in inventory and boarded so they shouldn’t let another person on unless the agent actively unchecked the second seat. Then again, I think WN has some sort of policy about you can’t buy a second seat unless you really need it (like you’re obese).
Another SWA problem of not assigning seats. Nobody can identify seats or passengers, and things turned bad.
Missing the real story: “Southwest reimbursed her the $2500 for her 2 seats”.
How the hell can you spend $1250 a seat for a Southwest flight from Nashville to Las Vegas?!
Hmmm? I don’t believe that Southwest sells seats? They simply sell access to the aircraft. After that, it’s a free for all to find a seat.
@Denis Bekaert. I agree that Southwest Airlines has never asked me if I was disabled when making my reservations. However, according to the TMZ article, more than one boarding pass of passenger Sandra “Pepa” Denton was specially designated as “disabled.”
NedsKid suggested that Southwest Airlines might use the code “PREBD” to prevent passengers from sitting in an exit row on all their flights. As far as I understand, this additional information is added to the permanent Passenger Name Record (PNR) data, allowing Southwest Airlines to share passenger details with other airlines and government authorities. When Southwest Airlines labels passengers as disabled, I am curious about the steps these passengers would need to take to have the “disabled” designation removed from their travel records.
Dee Snider put on a great show in Congress when Tipper Gore was all into trying to control what music and video games people should be able to access. Looking back at how it was her husband who set up the country for haraSSSSment screening of Americans at airports via the push for CAPPS, I guess it should be not really surprising that the family also wanted to control music, video game and even TV programs available to consumers.
Interesting article and for sure I have to agree with one poster and it was how the air stewardesses are turning a little Gestapo on passengers and that shouldn’t be allowed at all because they are supposed to be curtious & helpfull on flights,not act like total stuck up Scumbags whom think they can push passengers around because sooner or later passengers will get tired of that kinda childish behaviour and they will start to push back
This is the consequence of the post-9/11 transformation where we very quickly ended up with “the flight attendants are primarily here for your safety” attitude that opened the barn door to empower the power-tripping types working for the airlines.
Yeah she bought two seats, but because of Southwest’s open seating policy, there’s nothing saying they had to be next to each other lol!
I don’t understand. If they offered her another seat with more legroom, why couldn’t they have just put the guy that was trying to take one of her seats in that “more legroom” seat? Why did they have to bother her?
@GUWonder: That session with Dee Snider in front of Congress is definitely on my C-Span’s greatest hits list. A great example of people high and mighty and so convinced in their own righteousness getting knocked down a few pegs not realizing the other side is just as educated and more eloquent.
@Ken A: It’s added a an SSR and just applies to that one PNR. Also those with PREBD are people like deadhead crew members and anybody else the customer service agents have decided to allow to get on the plane first. Not necessarily disabled. It means they can’t sit in the exit row – because 1.) a preponderance may not be eligible and 2.) those are desirable seats people pay extra to get early boarding for hopes of accessing. Until not very long ago, they gave a blue pre-board sleeve to passengers that was kind of a “first in line” indication. This just replaces that. WN has to have some level of communication between employees because the customer service agents do not board flights.
For those who don’t know why Southwest ALWAYS has two different people at the gate: they are two different functions. They are in different unions and cannot perform each other’s job. The person who checks you in, rebooks, clears standbys is at the counter and is the customer service agent (a member of IAM). The person who scans your boarding pass and operates the jetway is the operations agent, who is part of the ramp organization (and a member of the TWU). Thus you will see at some stations like at CLT or RIC where the ramp is outsourced, it is a vendor employee standing next to a Southwest employee at the gate – the vendor is there to board the passengers while the Southwest employee stands 3 feet away and watches because it isn’t in the scope of their job. Again, another example of WN letting “the way things have always been” seep into permanent ink in union contracts adding expense. Meanwhile you go to ATL and watch one agent board up a Delta 767-300 by themself, clearing standbys, boarding passengers, operating the jetway, printing flight paperwork, answering customer questions.
You can’t buy extra leg room on SWA and that a fact!! You can buy as man seats as you like and those are yours. Next, pre board is not bought. This story is full of holes and a lie. SWA might not be the best. There are no class seats. One seat for all. You can’t buy first class cuz they don’t have it. Can’t buy a seat with exit row! Can’t purchase an aisle seat. So not sure the problem. I call bullcrap on the story.
I don’t usually take the side of these entitled celebrities, but in this case, I think this woman was entitled to keep both seats that she had paid for. I hope she takes SW to court. A lawsuit is evidently needed to change some of these policies. Some of these flight attendants are really starting to get out of control with their overreaching behavior
This regularly happens on other carriers when someone buys two seats and the plane is oversold. The Airline has the right to put someone in that empty seat.
Can Southwest go a week without any negative news?
Herb is turning over in his grave right now.
Why don’t the WN FAs have handheld PDAs like on other airlines; I was just on Alaska and there was a seat issue; the FA was able to resolve it pretty quickly by pulling up the passenger info (he was in the wrong seat, wrong leg..). But something tells me WN FAs still get a dot-matrix printer sheet of flight details, which should list those who have an extra seat.
@NedsKid: Thank you for the update regarding an SSR applying to one PNR.
This is horrible. If you buy 2 seats then you deserve 2 seats. If they need 1 seat then bump someone who purchased one seat. It is not difficult to find someone who lost $$$ in Las Vegas to take a cash offer.
Perhaps the FAs thought she didn’t pay for the 2nd seat? But that’s usually easy to verify.
Another example of an airline trying to be cheap instead of doing the right thing. Hopefully Pepa will get some extra comp beyond the refund.
I want to thank Pepa for being vocal about the need for frank and open sexual discussion with your partners. 1990-1994 (pre-Newt) were the best years of American history. It’s sad that heroes like Pepa have to fly ECONOMY let alone SWA. Our country has gone so far backward. Did you do something to reduce AIDS in the 90s or move forward a more sexually evolved environment? Didn’t think so.
I have had problems before work this carrier. SWA used to be my go-to airline but I had an interaction with an IDIOT gate agent out of LAX who thought she was Hitler. This beech made up a story about me and behavior that I never committed then lied and said I was aggressive, so I was prohibited from flying that day. I am all for rules and regulations but maybe we (passengers) should start wearing body cameras at the gate do we’ll have proof of how out of control some of these gate agents AND flight attendants have become. Flying, in general, has become a dreaded chore.
US flight attendants got set to be out-of-control power-trippers following September 11th, 2001. This is nothing new. What is newer is that passengers have become a bit more willing to “talk back” and the power-trippers don’t like it. And so the power-tripping airline employees get their chance to escalate the matter more and have found allies among their company and industry colleagues and family members and friends of such and so the situation only got worse over time because of that.
Our ingenious government decided to make it federal law that you have to obey an often-below minimum wage worker who’s treated like garbage by their employer, it is absolutely no surprise these people are abusing that fact. Though I would hesitate to say it’s the majority of them. That being said, with all the bs to get to and through the airport, the insanely high fees, costs of tickets (SWA hasn’t been a low cost carrier for awhile) and stupid prices inside the airport, I just drive unless it’s literally impossible to do so. The only way you can affect change in these companies is stop giving them your money, or elect some people to government that will actually care about the people they’re supposed to represent.
@Alien Ten, You must really be an alien to come up with such BS like that. Let’s discuss;
*You can’t buy extra leg room on SWA and that a fact!! – This was never attempted, so apparently you have a reading comprehension issue.
*You can buy as man seats as you like and those are yours. – This is exactly what Ms Peppa did. She purchased an extra seat for medical reasons.
*Next, pre board is not bought. – Er, no one ever said it was, read much? *This story is full of holes and a lie. – Now you are sounding like a trump attorney.
*SWA might not be the best. There are no class seats. One seat for all. You can’t buy first class cuz they don’t have it. Can’t buy a seat with exit row! Can’t purchase an aisle seat. So not sure the problem. I call bullcrap on the story. – Yadda Yadda Yadda. You’re not sure of anything, but you have the gall to fabricate, fallacious facts, i.e. alternative facts, invented in your alien head.
My advice to you, stay away from the Jewish space lasers.
First it was American and the four men deplaned because someone complained about body odor from one.
Next United has a retired star football player arrested for touching a FA.
Now Southwest kicking a singer off for apparently refusing to give up her medically necessary extra seat for a lying man.
Anyone see the pattern here?
Southwest is a cheap airline but just a step ahead of Spirit Airlines
Fire every flight attendant and rebuild the culture from scratch, starting with rule one:
Nobody wants to hear a flight attendant’s thoughts. Shut up and pour the drinks. Ideally, FAs will have their vocal cords severed upon hiring.
Then when he got away with this with her back in the day pep where the f*** that stewardess waitress that’s all they are is waitresses in the sky she’d have beat that glorified waitresses ass and anybody else that got involved and trust me if that was me now at 57 we just still been on that one way nobody would have gone nowhere I paid for two seats if it was for me just to put a shoe in it I don’t have to wear s*** I paid for it if it was just for me to put my purse in that seat that’s my f****** seat
I have bought an extra seat for comfort several times before. The contract usually allows the airline to take back your extra seat and refund what you paid for it. They can do this at anytime but will do it on full flights when they can make extra money by selling a very high price last minute ticket. It is all about them making a lot more money so they steal the seat back (give you less than full market value at the time of the action.) That practice should be outlawed. She should sue and make it an Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit. That should overcome the contract limitations.