Southwest Airlines Now Policing Passengers for Modesty?
Southwest Airlines may have bitten itself off more than it can chew in a recent incident involving one of its passengers.
On a flight from San Diego to Tucson, 23-year-old Kyla Ebbert was escorted off the plane and told to change her clothes when other passengers on the plane complained to flight attendants that she was dressed too provocatively. At the time she was wearing a shirt with a small sweater tied over the top, and a white mini-skirt with a frayed hem.
Ebbert, who was on a day trip for a doctor's appointment, did not have luggage with her, and thus no other clothing options available. When she responded to the accusation, she was allegedly told, "this is a family flight".
Ebbert was eventually allowed to remain on the flight, on the condition that she use a blanket to cover her legs and a sweater to cover her skimpy blouse.
However, the stir from the incident has been picked up by some national media outlets, making the Hooters waitress a news darling and arousing ire from people on both sides of the issue.
One of Ebbert's supporters proved to be the Today Show, on which she was invited to be a guest of host Matt Lauer, while wearing the exact outfit that the Southwest flight attendants had reprimanded her for. On the show, Ebbert related her account of the story once again, and told how she was brought out on to the jetway by a flight attendant who relayed the complaint.
According to Ebbert, she asked the employee, "What part is it? The shirt? The skirt? Which part?" to which he said, "the whole thing".
Interestingly, Ebbert wore the same outfit on the return flight from Tucson to San Diego with no reaction. In fact, she claims that one of the female flight attendants complimented her on the outfit.
After CNN and other news shows aired stories on the incident, another woman came forward saying that she also was forced to cover herself on a Southwest Airlines flight. Setara Qassim of Encino, California was told to cover up her revealing dress or a security agent would escort her off the plane. She, too, covered herself with a blanket.
Initially, Ebbert claims that all she wanted from the airline company is to issue her an apology. After waiting two months with no response from Southwest, she took her case to the media and sought the advice of a lawyer.
Currently, Ebbert and her lawyer have not made a determination about whether to pursue her case in a court of law.
After her appearance on the Today Show, Southwest issued an official statement that backs the decision of the employee:
"Southwest Airlines was responding to a concern about Ms. Ebbert's revealing attire on the flight that day. As a compromise, we asked her to adjust her clothing to be less revealing, she complied, and she traveled as scheduled. When a concern is brought to our employees' attention, we address that situation directly with the customer(s) involved in a discreet and professional matter. Fortunately, as an airline that carries approximately 96 million customers a year, those situations are extremely rare."
A San Diego Union-Tribune story contained a response to an inquiry about the company's dress code for passengers. However, per company policy, they don't have one! According to the company representative who responded to the Union-Tribune reporter, a "young woman could wear a bikini top" while flying on the airline. "We don't have a problem with it if she's covered up in all the right spots," the article quotes her as saying. "We don't have a dress code."
Casting stones can be a dangerous game for any company to play. Southwest, for example, just has to look back at its own television advertising to find a situation in which it prominently displayed skimpy mini-skirts designed to bring in revenues. Early Southwest TV commercials featured flight attendants in Southwest-orange mini-skirts, hot pants and gogo-boots, flaunting their stuff in front of the camera.
If Southwest Airlines continues to accost customers without stated policy supporting their complaints, the slogan we might be remembering may not be, "Remember what it was like before Southwest Airlines?", as it was in the vintage commercials, but rather "Remember what it was like when Southwest Airlines was still in business?"
