We need to talk about what is happening with Southwest Airlines right now because it is directly relevant to anyone planning a Disney World trip and flying with them, and the stories that have gone viral in the past few weeks deserve more than a headline.
Two women went on TikTok to share their experiences with Southwest's updated Customer of Size policy and the response was massive. Not because people are shocked that airlines have size policies. Because the way this one is being applied is creating situations that are genuinely difficult to defend, and both women who spoke about it publicly did so with a clarity and specificity that made it very hard to look away.
We are covering this fully because Disney travelers flying Southwest need to understand what is currently happening before they get to the airport. The last place you want to encounter a policy surprise is at a gate when you have non-refundable park tickets waiting for you on the other end.
The Policy Change That Started All of This
Southwest updated its Customer of Size policy on January 27, 2026. The new guidelines require passengers who may not fit within a single seat to proactively purchase an additional seat before travel. The policy also gives Southwest the authority to make that call at any point based on its own judgment, without specifying measurements, weight thresholds, or any objective criteria beyond potential encroachment on a neighboring seat.
No clear standards. No measurement guide. Just discretion.
As you are about to see, that discretion is the entire problem.
Erika DeBoer: Flagged Going, Fine Coming Home
Erika DeBoer is 38 years old and was a frequent Southwest flyer before February 6, 2026. She was traveling from Omaha to Las Vegas when a Southwest employee at bag check told her she needed to purchase an extra seat. When she asked why, she was told it was for the safety and comfort of other passengers.
“The part that lingers the most is the words used. ‘Safety and comfort' of other passengers. They just kept repeating it like robots without any care for the actual situation,” she told PEOPLE.
She paid for an upgraded window seat. She flew to Las Vegas. And on her return flight from Las Vegas back to Omaha, not a single Southwest employee said a word to her about it.
Same person. Same body. Different outcome. That is the policy working exactly as written, which is to say inconsistently and entirely based on whoever happens to be working your gate that day.
After she got home, DeBoer contacted Southwest. They refunded the extra ticket and the upgraded seat and sent her a $150 voucher. She is still waiting for actual policy clarification.
“It feels powerless to be given two options — either buy an extra seat or not be allowed on the flight,” she said. “I was not humiliated or embarrassed or on the verge of tears. I was angry. I have zero shame in my size.”
She also raised a point that has been shared widely: “The scrutiny wasn't about space alone — it was about size, and specifically about fat bodies, when it should be about every body that might spill past an armrest or encroach on the seat next to them.”
Grace Simpson: Already on the Second Leg When It Happened
Grace Simpson's experience is somehow even more striking. She flew from Norfolk, Virginia to Baltimore on February 10 without any issue. Boarded fine. Sat down fine. Flew the whole flight fine. Then at the gate in Baltimore for her connecting flight to San Diego, a supervisor approached her and told her a gate agent had flagged her as a potential customer of size. She would need to buy another seat.
“I told him that I had already flown from Norfolk to Baltimore without issue, so I was not going to buy another ticket,” she recalled. The supervisor ended up relocating her to an empty back row seat at no charge.
But the experience stayed with her. “It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I could go through ticketing, security, boarding and take my seat — with multiple employees seeing me — and yet if one person decided I didn't fit the policy, I could be publicly deboarded,” she told PEOPLE. “Even if nine people before thought I was fine, the 10th person could override that. That level of discretion feels less about safety and more about personal judgment and discrimination.”
The timing of all of this hit Simpson in a very specific way. “I had just hit the 100-pound milestone less than a week before this incident,” she said. “Instead, the experience felt like a slap in the face. While I know I'm still a large person, that moment overshadowed what should have been a celebration of how far I've come.”
She described what the unpredictability does to larger travelers before they even get to the airport. “When something as personal as your body is left up to real-time opinion, it doesn't feel clear or fair. It feels like you're one decision away from public embarrassment.”
Simpson also described what it felt like to be singled out. “The supervisor who approached me was clearly uncomfortable and embarrassed to single me out and discuss my body. In many ways, it felt unfair to both of us.”
She has not formally complained to Southwest.
What They Both Actually Want
Neither woman told PEOPLE they want Southwest to eliminate a customer of size policy. Both were specific and consistent about what they actually need from the airline.
DeBoer put it plainly: “It's completely unfair to get to the airport and be told you have to purchase an extra seat with no actual parameters or guidelines. It was all up to the discretion of the Southwest employee by looking at me. Also, how awful to make your employees have to have that conversation. Maybe just make better seats for people. You've addressed extra legroom, why not make a bigger seat?”
Simpson called for transparency before passengers ever get to the airport: “From a consumer standpoint, transparency means more than just having information buried on a website. If a policy could require someone to purchase an additional seat or potentially deplane, it should be clearly communicated at the point of purchase. There should be a prompt, a checkbox or a clearly visible notice — something that ensures customers are aware before they finalize their ticket.”
She added something that gets to the heart of why this matters: “Without clear measurements or objective standards, there's no way to prepare or make an informed decision before arriving at the airport. When enforcement is based on ‘sole discretion' instead of defined guidelines, it feels subjective — and that directly impacts fairness.”
DeBoer on what the policy communicates to larger travelers: “The message it sends is that it made me feel evaluated before I was respected. It sends the message that larger travelers' access to public space is conditional.”
And both women landed on the same fundamental point. DeBoer: “When people say this is about ‘comfort and safety for all passengers,' I think what's often missing is that people of size are also part of ‘all passengers.'”
Simpson: “Fat passengers deserve dignity, predictability, and respect in public spaces too. The conversation often centers on how other passengers feel sitting next to someone larger, but it rarely considers how it feels to be the person being evaluated, flagged or potentially removed.”
Southwest told PEOPLE its policy is “well defined” on its website and is “in line with airline industry standards.”
Why This Is a Disney Vacation Problem Specifically
Related: Universal Confirms 17 Attractions Are Banned for “Plus-Size” Guests
Here is the part we really need you to sit with if you are flying Southwest to Disney World.
A Disney vacation is not a flexible itinerary that can absorb surprises at the gate. It is a structure built months in advance with pieces that do not move easily. Non-refundable park tickets. Dining reservations held with a credit card. Resort check-ins. Lightning Lane bookings tied to specific dates. A character breakfast your kid has been counting down to for eight weeks.
A gate confrontation that results in a missed flight or an unexpected seat purchase does not just cost money in the moment. It can take the first day of a trip that took months to plan and turn it into something you are emotionally recovering from for the rest of the vacation.
The inconsistency both women experienced is the specific detail that makes this hard to plan around. There is no measurement you can take at home that guarantees a consistent outcome at the gate. The most protective thing a larger traveler booking Southwest to Disney World can do right now is review the Customer of Size policy on Southwest's website before purchasing, seriously consider proactively booking a second seat if there is any uncertainty, and contact Southwest with direct questions before travel day rather than at the gate.
Travel insurance that covers trip interruptions is also worth adding to the conversation for any Disney trip where the arrival day connects tightly to park reservations. It is not a situation most guests plan for. Right now it is a situation worth planning for.
Disney Itself Is Actually Doing This Better and It Is Worth Knowing About
Once you get through the airport and through the gates at Walt Disney World, the experience is meaningfully different from what DeBoer and Simpson described on their Southwest flights, and that is not an accident.
Disney has made consistent and ongoing efforts to design attractions that work for the widest possible range of guests. It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean use open boat-style seating with no fixed individual dimensions. Omnimover attractions like The Haunted Mansion and Journey Into Imagination with Figment use a continuous bench design rather than individual bucket seats, removing the fixed width constraints that create issues elsewhere.
Disney has also proactively converted attractions over the years from more defined individual seating configurations to open flat bench styles specifically to ensure more guests can ride. The philosophy behind those changes is straightforward: more guests experiencing the attraction is better than fewer, and the ride vehicle should accommodate people rather than turn them away.
Test seats are available outside several attractions for guests who want to check before committing to a queue. Cast Members handle those conversations with discretion and without making guests feel singled out in the way both women described at Southwest.
The contrast between those two experiences is significant. Southwest is currently navigating what happens when a policy without clear standards gets applied by individual employees in real time. Disney has been working for years to take individual judgment out of the equation entirely by changing the design.
Go see your people at Southwest before your trip if you have questions. And once you get to the parks, know that Disney has been thinking about this longer than the conversation has been trending.
