United Starts An Internet Firestorm By Refusing To Let 3 Girls Board Because They Were Wearing Leggings
NY Times- United Airlines barred two teenage girls from boarding a flight on Sunday morning and required a child to change into a dress after a gate agent decided the leggings they were wearing were inappropriate. That set off waves of anger on social media, with users criticizing what they called an intrusive, sexist policy, but the airline maintained its support for the gate agent’s decision.
The girls, who were about to board a flight to Minneapolis, were turned away at the gate at Denver International Airport, the company said on Sunday. United doubled down on that decision, defending it in a series of tweets on Sunday.
Ms. Watts went over to the neighboring gate and saw a “frantic” family with two young girls, one of whom was also wearing leggings, engaged in a tense exchange with a gate agent who told them, “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”
[A passenger] judged that the two girls who were barred from boarding were in their “young teens” and the girl who changed into a dress was 10 or 11.
Jonathan Guerin, a spokesman for United, confirmed that two teenage girls were told they could not board a flight from Denver to Minneapolis because their leggings violated the company’s dress code policy for “pass travelers,” a company benefit that allows United employees and their dependents to travel for free on a standby basis.
Mr. Guerin said pass travelers are “representing” the company and as such are not allowed to wear Lycra and spandex leggings, tattered or ripped jeans, midriff shirts, flip-flops or any article of clothing that shows their undergarments.
United has a policy that allows its employees, and their family members, to travel for free on standby. Apparently, pass travelers are held to a different standard of dress than regular passengers because they’re seen to represent the company. The three girls in this case were all pass travelers.
But barring girls from wearing yoga pants on an airplane in 2017 America is like telling women they can’t vote. In fact, I’d wager that a good portion of women in our country, forced to choose between suffrage and wearing leggings on flights, would light their ballots on fire. Lululemon and all its copycat brands started a revolution under the pretense of sexy, comfortable yogawear, and maybe 3% of the girls in leggings actually do yoga. The rest are wearing leggings for flying, or just as casual “pants.” It’s completely acceptable today and both men and women are fine with it. I flew yesterday and I’d venture to say that no fewer than half the women on my flight were in leggings. I didn’t even have to look–my gut (penis) told me.
As such, United is wrong here. You can’t tell a 10-year-old girl she can’t wear leggings on a plane. Maybe you can tell the teenagers and pretend like their leggings were too tight/see-through. But a 10-year-old is going to upset people every single time. She becomes a mascot, the face of a cause. And you have to believe someone is on hand to start tweeting the hell out of it, which is exactly what happened.
Last thing–United sucks. Their legroom is offensive. No TVs in the headrests. Compared to JetBlue, it’s like a flight to Guantanamo.
PS-
Chrissy Teigen in jeans and a scarf? What a statement of protest. I would board that flight knowing it was an ISIS school bus just for a chance to see that.