Message to Southwest: Don’t screw with Kevin Smith. The famed director of movies like Clerks and Dogma was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight, supposedly for being “too fat to fly”, though Mr. Smith says the company admitted to him that that was not the reason at all. At any rate, Smith has been lambasting the company on his twitter all day–a fiery attack which reached his 1.6 million twitter-followers loud and clear. Southwest is, naturally, having to back off now.

The controversy is a public relations challenge for Southwest. The airline had the lowest rate of passenger complaints among U.S. airlines last year, according to a government report issued last week.

Of course, none of that matters now–the story has broken wide open and Kevin Smith is basically on a crusade at this point, one which will either end in lost business for Southwest or an apology. Either way, Southwest Airlines would benefit from some corporate reputation management.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/15/kevin.smith.southwest/index.html?hpt=C2