Was Southwest right for asking Kyla Ebbert to leave the plane, then to put a blanket over her legs?
Do airlines have the right to tell people what to wear on the plane?
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Was Southwest right for asking Kyla Ebbert to leave the plane, then to put a blanket over her legs?
Do airlines have the right to tell people what to wear on the plane?
Yes, an airplane is private property, and it is legal to discriminate based on type of clothing worn or lack thereof -- that is, clothing itself is not a protected class, unless said article of clothing is worn predominantly by members of a protected class.
You know "no shirt, no shoes, no service"? Same thing. There are few actual laws banning shopping barefoot.
Southwest is free to deny service based on sartorial preference, and air travelers are free to fly a competitor if they don't like it.
What Hurley said.
As a frequent air traveler, I wish more airlines enforced similar policies. I've seen things, man. Bad things.
(I'm sitting in my sweet upgraded seat on an AA flight from DFW to LAS right now, smack in the middle of an 8k miles / 5 days jaunt)
I suppose in theory the airline has the right to regulate sartorial preferences, but in this case they weren't reasonable. Circa 1969, half the women in the country under 30 would have been wearing a shorter skirt than that on a given day. And making her put a blanket over her legs was unnecessary humiliation.
I wonder if that is really what she looked like on the plane, or if she pulled her shirt up a little bit and made herself look a little more presentable.
If you've ever watched the A&E Show "Airline" for any length of time, I hope you would choose to fly a competitor.
It's unbelievable how arbitrary and obnoxious Southwest employees are about enforcing their petty power. Their favorite trick is to decide that somebody's drunk and shouldn't be allowed to fly -- again, watching the show, a handful probably are too drunk to fly, but a majority are not. My favorite was the middle-age man who was semi-coherent that they decided not to allow to fly. He missed his flight and was in tears ... it turned out that he hadn't had a think to drink -- he had a speech impediment and a nerve disease that caused him to move erratically.
My other favoite Southwest trick is to oversell flights. This isn't a rare occurance -- it happens all the time. People arrive with their paid-for tickets and on time and they are denied seats because Southwest sold too many seats.
So next time you are tempted to purchase one of those "cheap" Southwest tickets, be sure you understand what you are getting into.
I fly Southwest 3-4 times/year and have never run into any of the above you mentioned, nor the issue with dress. I'm not going to stop because of the few incidents that get a lot of attention.
Kind of like I'm not going to stop rooting for or working at Duke because of a few bad incidents that have gotten a lot of attention.
SW may have the legal right to boot her off, but in my opinion fat guys with beer bellies hanging over shorts and sandals are much more offensive, and make the flight more crowded, to boot. If cute women have to dress more conservatively to sit in an airplane, then so should not-so-cute sloppies.
p.s. billybreen, tell me more about getting online while flying. I am ignorant but intrigued.
Southwest seems to have both very devoted fans and very concerned detractors, when I listen to people talk about the airline. I've never bought a SW ticket yet because I can't stand the idea of not having a seat assignment. I don't want to get into some sort of Lord of the Flies situation just trying to sit down. I've heard people tell some stunning stories about people's conduct in the seating process.
I may have to give in just because they go to some places direct from Lambert.
Once more let me plug for one thing Delta does well. (Getting you there on time isn't one of their strengths). The accommodate disability well. I doubt that crap SW pulled on the dude with the speech impediment would have happened with Delta. My mother is in a wheel chair when she's outside the house, and she's never had any trouble with Delta. USAir, OTOH, abandoned her for 45 minutes once, and couldn't produce pre-reserved wheelchairs on other occasions.
I flew Southwest a lot in college because it was so cheap and convenient going between Durham and Tampa. I never had any problem with the seating and never saw any bad conduct from anyone.
I rather liked the seat yourself system... I mean, one thing Duke students know how to do is getting in line to be first at something ;-)... but I'm guessing it could be a little obnoxious if you had connecting flights and couldn't control whether or not you'd get there early enough to get a good spot in line.
I'd rather buy a ticket on Southwest than fly United or USAirways on a free ticket. The most important factor for me when flying is getting there on time with my luggage. The "traditional" or "bankrupt" airlines don't seem to make that a priority.
Southwest was wrong. They have no stated dress code, and available evidence points to conclusion that the woman in question was not wearing obscene or offensive clothing. To the extent Southwest would like to argue that her outfit was obscene or offensive, the argument is undercut by the fact that I have seen many, many people on SWA flights in much more revealing clothing. Try taking the Friday night flight from San Diego to Vegas.
More to the point, Southwest has handled this terribly from a business standpoint. The young woman is sympathetic, and her story has moved from local news to national exposure. Southwest could have easily kept this story out of the headlines by saying, "Oops, we're sorry. Please understand it is difficult to accomodate the wishes of the various passengers, and the official was just trying to do his best in the situation. We apologize for any inconvenience. Have a few drink vouchers."
How much do you want to bet that someone is trying to explain to his/her boss why he/she didn't do just that?
Looks to me like they changed the rules after the game had started.