World Hum’s Most Read: Aug. 2-8

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What We Loved This Week: Paul Theroux, the Bombay Club and Summer in Chicago

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World’s Longest Yard Sale: 654 Miles of Bargains From Ohio to Alabama

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Inside the ‘Cuisines of the Axis of Evil’

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J. Maarten Troost: Enduring Pollution and Reptile-Laden Lunches in China For Our Benefit

David Farley chats with the author of “Lost on Planet China” about the Olympic Games, Tibet and eating not-so-well in the Middle Kingdom

‘The Monster of Florence’: Murder and the Pursuit of Truth

Douglas Preston’s latest book, the true story of a serial killer in Italy, shows that the world is far from exhausted for those who want to travel deep. Frank Bures tells why. 

My Travels, My Feet

After taking one too many headless torso shots of herself, solo traveler Sophia Dembling started snapping photos of her feet around the world, from the Grand Canyon to Red Square

Affairs to Remember—On-Screen and Off

From “Roman Holiday” to “Before Sunrise,” Hollywood has understood the appeal of the overseas fling. Eva Holland explains the staying power of the big screen Euro-romance.

Seven Reasons to Have a Foreign Fling

Sure, having an overseas romance is fun. But Terry Ward points out seven other benefits to cross-border love, mon petit chou.

As a Woman, Can I Really Travel Without Much Fear for my Safety?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Break Bread and Brie in France

Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.

Southwest Airlines Veers Into Fashion Controversy—Again

Posted by Jim Benning • 9.7.07
Categories: Weblog • Air Travel • Travel Fashion

Permalink • Comments (25)

An outrage. I’ve been looking for an excuse to boycott this joke airline. And here it is.

what’s funny is i’ve been on a flight that notorious porn star/producer ron jeremy has been on wearing a shirt that said “hump day” - people were shaking his hand on the way out… it’s not like southwest is the classiest airline.

this “joke airline” is the only profitable airline there is. go down with the falling airlines.

Cool!!!  I was wondering when we’d find a company that is willing to take on the really important issues.  Maybe Southwest can lecture overweight folks on the merits of diet and exercise.  How about too many tattoos and how horrible they will look in the years to come—and saggy skin?  Maybe a make-up artist can go down the lines outside the gates and give tips?  If folks don’t adjust their make-up, then remove them from the plane or at least the Group 1 line!!!  Why would any company allow themselves to have such public controversy?

k white wrote: “go down with the falling airlines.”

If they allow my “Dubya is a Clueless D*ck” t-shirt and the lovely Ms. Ebbert aboard their flights, I will gladly do so.

Hey, with airline budgets as tight as Miss Ebbert’s top, I’m guessing their CFO said it’s time for some cheap publicity.  And with tolerance obviously as short as her skirt, this seems like a logical move to me.  Instead of sueing them, perhaps she should estimate how much free advertising they got out of her humiliation and send them an invoice.

Way to go Southwest. Few things on a flight are more annoying than being trapped for hours and hours with someone showing too much skin. Flights should be safe to take your kids on too.

This is outrageous… The outfit’s not even especially scandalous! Sure the skirt’s a little short but her top half is fully covered. Rand - “too much skin”?? On her leg? Mustn’t let our children see any nasty leg skin…

I say good for Southwest!  We live in a society where women have been allowed to walk the streets half naked for a long time.  Women go to work in tank tops that expose their breasts and miniskirts that barely cover their rear ends. Can a man wear a tank top or sleeveless shirt...or even shorts to work? 

Men can’t even bear too much leg without having the police called on them.  Can you imagine that a man would be allowed to fly in short shorts or without a shirt?  It would never happen and the fact that a man was forced off a plane for wearing inappropriate clothing wouldn’t even make the news.

People need to stop crying about this incident and accept the fact that there are rules regarding clothing worn in public.  Stop playing the feminist card ...women have had free reign in the realm of revealing clothing for a long time.

Southwest stewardesses used to wear hot pants. Check out this TV ad from the early 1970s. I wonder if someone dressed like this be allowed to fly on one of their flights today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7JApjgIGw

I wonder, too, Barbara. The outfit in that ad doesn’t seem far from the one worn by Kyla Ebbert.

k white, Southwest was only profitable with their gas hedge.  American has been profitable for years now and Continental has been profitable for over a year now.

Southwest Airlines is pure crap.  The first time I flew them, they refused to follow procedures and I caught them on it.  It was such a disservice to a passenger, that I was compensated 3 times the amount of my ticket.

I think it was good Southwest took a stand.  Disrespect is going down down down in this country. Crime is going up up up.  We need to start taking a stand on decency and respect.  These girls have no self respect for their bodies.  What do think there living, a porn show?The young guys wear pants hanging off their butts and talk some gibberish is making me ill.  Then everybody wants to sue, sue, sue. Our military is fighting for our rights to be free.  Not to be naked and cursing.

It isn’t very difficult to find Southwest’s dress code information on their website.

An Airline has just as much right to determine they own passenger requirements for flying on one of their planes as a restaurant does for their clients in order to be seated.

Dress codes aren’t always readily posted at retaurants but they can still refuse to seat anyone based on their attire.

Airlines can do the same.

Here’s Southwest’s information listed within a larger PDF file available on their web site:

F. Comfort and Safety - Carrier may refuse to transport or remove from the aircraft at any
point any passenger in the following categories as may be necessary for the comfort or safety of such passenger or other passengers:

(1) Persons whose conduct is or has been known to be disorderly, abusive, offensive, threatening, intimidating, or violent, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently offensive;

NOTE: Carrier will not refuse to provide transportation to a qualified individual with a disability solely because the individual’s disability results in appearance or involuntary behavior that may offend, annoy, or inconvenience crew members or other passengers.

(2) Persons who are barefoot and over five (5) years of age, unless caused or necessitated by a disability;

(3) Persons who are unable to occupy a seat with the seat belt fastened;

(4) Persons who are unwilling to comply with seating requirements under Carrier’s Customer of size policy as specified in Article 15.G;

NOTE: Carrier’s failure to enforce or willingness not to enforce its Customer of size policy for a passenger traveling on a given flight does not preclude Carrier from requiring such passenger to purchase two seats on a subsequent flight.

(5) Persons who appear to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs;

(6) Persons who are known to have a contagious disease;

(7) Persons who refuse to comply with instructions given by Carrier’s Employees or representatives prohibiting the solicitation of items for sale or purchase, including airline tickets, passes, or travel award certificates;

(8) Persons who have an offensive odor, except where such condition is the result of a disability.

To those people comparing the 1972 stewardess outfits to those of Ebbert might consider paying attention to the actual outfits of both.

Ebbert, even in her interviews wearing the same outfit that she wore on the plane pulled the bottom of her skirt lower and her top together.  The result ending up exposing her panties from some angles on national TV. I’m sure that’s exactly what you want kids on the airplane to be exposed to on a regular basis when someone is too lazy to look into the dress code policies.

The 1972 stewardess outfit was tight but nother was exposed.  She was wearing hot pant not exposed panties and her top was fully closed not exposing portions of he breasts.

I am disgusted that people are supporting the airline in this case.  It is amazing to me that people are so self absorbed and arrogant that they think their personal opinons apply to everyone else.  I found nothing offensive in her outfit whatsoever, society can not function at the lowest common denominator.. if you are offende by a short skirt or a little cleavage, consider that some are offended by women showing ANY skin at all, or by your spoken politial opinion.  It is not the worlds obligation to not offend YOU, show a little tolerance for other people, maybe just maybe they are a bit different from you...is that OK???.  Personally your opinion offends me, so if I overhear your conversation on an airline maybe I’ll request you be removed from the flight.

Mark,

I wasn’t making a comparison. I was pointing out an irony. I flew a Southwest flight when the airline’s stewardesses wore these outfits. They were pure Texas moxie, hot pants that practically touched the stewardesses’ touches, strategically provocative and contrarian to boot. I thought my friend’s grandfather was going to have a heart attack, he was enjoying the scenery so much. In an aisle seat, of course.

Barbara

ahhh...Southworst Airlines.
you get what you pay for.
period.

I so agree with SW airlines and JA. Women wear too little and are allowed to get away with it, and it is mostly men saying “whatever goes” but have a male try and get on a plane or almost anywhere, other than a beach, in really short shorts, partial or bare chest, or pants that would show any “private parts” or butt, and everyone would object. Double standards have been in play too long, come on we need to grow up and respect, if a women is allowed to “bare” all, let men do the same!

I sincerely wish that I could blow this off as a tempest in a teapot, but I can’t.  I’ve seen the pictures of the outfit in question, and I can’t see how it would offend anyone. If a girl showing her kneecaps is offensive, what about my semi-bald head? Or my snow-white beard? By taking her money, Southwest entered into a contract with her as a passenger, to provide transportation to a designated location. The airline is neither her mother nor her priest.

SHAME! SHAME! ETERNAL BURNING SHAME! on Southwest Air. I hereby call for a boycott upon them, to endure until those Puritan Nazis have been bankrupted.

Fashion ...hmmm people use to change their look every day and everyone want to be look like funky...:P

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2008

Contact:
John J. Tormey III, Esq.: ‘jtormey@optonline.net’, 1-212-410-4142
Tom Sullivan, “Quiet Rockland”: 1-845-480-1088

“QUIET ROCKLAND” CALLS FOR NATIONWIDE BOYCOTT OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

Rockland County, NY – March 12, 2008: 

Aero-activist group Quiet Rockland of Rockland County, New York, enraged over “callous criminal disregard for safety and human life” demonstrated by Southwest Airlines (NYSE: “LUV”) and the FAA, today called for: (1) a nationwide traveler and consumer boycott of Southwest, and (2) a federal criminal investigation of Southwest and “failed regulator” FAA to be spear-headed by the United States Attorney General and a special prosecutor.

Said John J. Tormey III, Esq., attorney and Quiet Rockland co-founder: “The persons that should be flying Southwest at this point, should be only those referred by Doctor Kevorkian. Although the depraved Southwest spin-machine audaciously ‘assures’ us Southwest’s six (6) cracked-fuselage aircraft were “never a safety problem”, Southwest should tell that to the victims of the 1988 Aloha Airlines disaster. There, metal fatigue on an aging Boeing 737 caused 18 feet of fuselage to be ripped off the plane causing grievous injuries and loss of life. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar in his press conference Saturday, posted on “www.cspan.org”, presented detailed evidence incriminating Southwest and “Bobby” Sturgell’s failed FAA. The incriminating events occurred while “Bobby” Sturgell was Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the FAA. On Saturday, Representative Oberstar thereupon rightfully excoriated the aero-perps for their long-standing “tombstone mentality”. Although criminal and morally reprehensible, and now apparent after a many-month detailed Congressional investigation, Southwest and FAA are clearly in the insalubrious business of making those tombstones happen, in addition to simply reacting to those tombstones post facto.

“As recently as last year, Southwest Airlines, with the complicity of supposed federal regulator FAA, on at least 47 of Southwest’s Boeing 737 aircraft, on between 1,451 and 60,000 flights, over a period of two-and-one-half years, deliberately put approximately 200,000 or more unsuspecting travelers in harm’s way - making them fly in un-inspected, non-compliant, aged, and in some cases fuselage-cracked commercial aircraft. Southwest knew the names and faces of their potential victims. Southwest gladly took their money, and for that matter at this point Southwest owes each of them at least a rebate in full of their ticket prices. This was not mere negligence. Irrespective of what forensic lesser charge might technically ultimately apply once further Congressional investigation concludes, the acts and omissions of Southwest and collaborator FAA were tantamount to attempted murder, on a massive scale.

“This WILL not stand.

“Quiet Rockland asks and encourages those Southwest employees tired of subscribing to their company’s tombstone culture, to leave their sinking airship now to find other and better employ at a responsible airline that actually acknowledges the dignity of the individual human traveler. We further ask every American consumer to now act in solidarity - cancel all flights and other business with Southwest – boycott the airline which we today re-name “Air Kevorkian” - and just say “No” to Southwest, to FAA, and to the greed of the aeromercantile complex that continually and habitually puts profits over people’s lives. And, as to Southwest stockholders? Vote your conscience”.#

"Triggering the Grand Irrationality?”

Cowering in an obscure corner of the food pyramid

somewhere between the tofu and the unflavored yogurt

contemplating the juxtaposition of intangibles for all you are worth.....

--klqtzz

If a woman decides to go out almost naked it’s her choice. If she decides to get into a plain dressed like that and let people gossip it’s her choice again. The airline shouldn’t discriminate anyone based on how they are dressed. I myself hate these emo kids wearing very colorful clothing, bracelets, badges and chains. This doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop them from shopping in my store and lose my business.

It may go far with such rules; e.g for smb. one clothes is normal, for others not. I’m also against discrimination!

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