Too beautiful for this Southwest flight?
Southwest Airlines LUVs pretty people, but the Texas airline does not like rude, aggressive loudmouths -- regardless of how pretty some young women might think they are.
If you haven't heard, two 18-year-old women claimed that Southwest treated them rudely on a Feb. 14 flight from Tampa to Los Angeles and then banned them from future flights because they're too pretty. Click on that link to check out a photo of the young ladies.
I was sort of inclined to believe their story since this is the same airline that ended up apologizing to a passenger in October because they forced him to change out of a sexually suggestive T-shirt or risk getting thrown off the plane. The shirt used a sexual double entendre to promote a fictional fishing tackle shop that carried the words, "Master Baiter." And, this is the same airline that last July, had to apologize to a San Diego college student after an employee objected to her denim miniskirt and summer sweater over a tank top. The passenger was allowed to fly after agreeing to alter her outfit.
It would be easy to lump this third incident in with the other two, especially since Southwest's clothes police seem to have too much time on their hands. (By the way, the free-wheeling, cheery airline doesn't even have a dress policy).
But, Southwest wants to set the record straight by saying that the women in the February incident were NOT acting like ladies at all. In a statement the airline released yesterday about the incident, Southwest said:
Southwest Airlines would like to set the record straight regarding a situation involving two female Customers, Ms. Sarah Williams and Ms. Nisreen Swedberg, on Flight #3600 from Tampa Bay to Los Angeles on February 14, 2008. During this flight, the Flight Crew and several witnesses confirm that Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg's unruly behavior was touched off by an occupied lavatory. After banging on the door, Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg became verbally abusive and threatening toward the Customer who had been using the lavatory.
When Our Flight Crew addressed the situation with Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg, the two Customers continued their threatening behavior and abusive language. At this time, the Flight Crew requested that local police meet the flight upon its arrival in Los Angeles. The police questioned several witnesses, as well as Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg, who were later released. Contrary to reports, we did not ban these Customers from flying Southwest Airlines.
Here's what one of the two young women said to TampaBays10.com about the incident:
“I think they were just discriminating against [us] because we were young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked like us except us. [The flight attendants] were like older ladies. We were younger. Who knows, they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger.”
And finally, Southwest's retort:
Our Employees must maintain a Safe and comfortable environment onboard the aircraft at all times. Despite some news reports, this story has nothing to do with Ms. Swedberg and Ms. Williams' appearance, but rather, their use of what other Passengers tell us was profanity and threatening behavior onboard one of our flights. Finally, we would have gone out of business a long time ago if we discriminated against beautiful women -- or anyone else for that matter. We carry almost 100 million Customers a year, and they are all beautiful in our eyes.
I'm not sure who to believe now. We weren't there so we have no idea what happened, but you gotta love the airline's cheeky response to those young ladies' healthy-sized egos. Plus, the airline says it has witnesses who back up its story. What do you think?
Comments
I'd be more inclined to believe the girls, except for the fact that they believe they were discriminated against simply because they think they are "decent-looking girls." They even said that nobody on the plane looked as good as they did, in their eyes at least. It's pretty obvious from their own comments that they are both little prima donnas. Finally, maybe that is a bad picture of the two, but they aren't THAT pretty.
Gotta side with Southwest on this one.
DD: Steve, I'm with you on this one. I just don't buy the whole they're-all-jealous-old-hags argument.
Posted by: steve | February 27, 2008 6:38 PM