Keirstyn Catron was standing at the gate waiting to board when an airline staff member approached her in front of the other passengers and asked if she could fit in a seat.
She never made it onto the plane.
The 24-year-old from Houston shared the experience on TikTok, where the clip has been viewed more than 223,000 times.
The incident took place at LaGuardia Airport in New York on 10 November last year but went viral in March after Catron posted about it.
‘I was discriminated against based on an assumption’
Catron says the staff member raised the issue publicly rather than discreetly.
“She proceeded to ask me if I can fit into a seat in front of everyone,” she told CreatorZine.
“She also said because of my size, I potentially would not be able to get on the plane.”
She was not given the opportunity to demonstrate whether she could fit. She was stopped from boarding entirely.
“I never made it on the plane. I simply was just discriminated against and thrown off based off an assumption.”
The gate agent and a supervisor were, in Catron’s account, unhelpful.
“The gate agent and the supervisor were very rude and unwilling to help me.”
The only positive interaction she had was with a staff member at a ticket counter elsewhere in the airport.
“The only person who was kind to me was a guy who was at a ticket counter downstairs.”
The response online
The video split along predictable lines, though the majority of visible comments sided with Catron.
“What an awful situation you experienced. For this to be your memory of New York, as special as it is. You deserved better than this,” wrote one viewer.
A commenter identifying as an employee of a different airline said: “I literally couldn’t imagine singling someone out to say this. I’d be mortified.”
Another wrote: “I have seen at least 10+ of the same story, and I hope Southwest is listening to all of this.”
One viewer predicted: “This is gonna be a wild class action lawsuit.”
Catron’s message
Despite the experience, Catron used her platform to address other plus-size travellers directly.
“The main thing I want to say to my plus size women is you were made perfect,” she said.
“Don’t let hateful people keep you from doing the things you love to do. Always live boldly and unashamed, always be you.”
Why it matters
Plus-size passenger stories have become one of the most charged recurring conversations in travel content.
Airlines have policies around seating and size, but the way those policies are enforced, publicly or privately, with empathy or without, is what determines whether an incident becomes a viral backlash.
Catron’s account describes a situation where a staff member raised a sensitive issue in front of an entire gate full of passengers, which is the detail that drives the outrage.
The question of whether airlines should have size-related boarding policies is separate from the question of whether those policies should be implemented by singling someone out in a crowd.
Most of the anger in Catron’s comment section is about the second question, not the first. Southwest Airlines has been contacted for comment.
