Dressed down for dressing down

Harriet Baskas Travel writer

Last week, Kyla Ebbert appeared on TODAY to show Matt Lauer and the rest of the country the outfit she says an airline employee told her was too skimpy and revealing to wear on a July 3^rd Southwest Airlines flight from San Diego to Tucson.

Ebbert, a 23-year-old student and Hooters waitress, thought the outfit was appropriate flying attire for a quick day-trip from one hot city to another. So did her mom, her lawyer and plenty of folks who have heard her side of the story and seen the television clip. But as “Today” producer Dan Fleschner wrote on the program’s blog, after Ebbert stood up to show off her outfit, she sat down and gave the audience a peek at what may have been part of the problem.

Fleschner’s blog entry says: “At first, when she appeared on the set, it didn't seem like her outfit was so inappropriate. It was clear that her skirt was pretty short, but it didn't seem worthy of getting a lecture from a customer service representative on how to dress. But when she sat down, we learned just how short that skirt was — when she flashed our national television audience. Yeah, that skirt was short.”

Was it too short? Fleschner didn’t give his opinion. But it seems that the “flashing” scene was edited for the show’s later airings.

Ebbert’s experience, and other reported incidents where passengers have been asked to cover up or remove T-shirts bearing political statements or slogans, raises questions, including:

What is the appropriate dress for flying?

Do airlines have dress codes? Should they?

Can or should an airline employee be permitted to claim “inappropriate dress” as a reason for keeping a ticketed passenger from flying?

What is appropriate dress for flying?
Suits for men. Dresses for women.

Video Another woman dressed too sexy to fly? Sept. 11: A California woman claims that Southwest Airlines nearly kicked her off a flight because of the way she was dressed. KNBC's Patrick Healy reports. NBC News Channel

That used to be what you wore on an airplane. But that was when men wore suits and women wore dresses just about everywhere. Even, if you can believe those TV shows on Nick at Nite, to run to the grocery store and for nightly sitdown dinners with the family. These days, though, pretty much anything is worn pretty much everywhere. Even on airplanes.

On a recent nine-hour Air France flight from oh-so-fashionable Paris to Seattle, for example, the in-flight “uniform” seemed to be T-shirts and loose fitting sweat pants, shorts or blue jeans for both kids and adults. That pattern held true even in business class, where I spotted just two men in suits, a young woman wearing a bold red bra underneath a small black camisole and an older woman in a jaunty hat with a tall feather. (She either wore the hat the entire flight or put it on just for her trips to the restroom.)

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