'Do you suppose Aeroflot is at all passenger-friendly?'
Perhaps if one consumes oats by the bagful and uses one's tail to swish away the ever-present flies, it is.
;>)
Thank you for giving me another reason (among hundreds) not to fly unless absolutely unavoidable, LB.
THANK YOU FOR POSTING THAT PIC! I thought I'd seen before that that's how it was!
Yes, it was the era of hot pants, and yes, that's what they wore!
"Family airline" my ass! I'm virtually certain that flight attendant (HE no less) was some Christianist with a bug up his ass about women!
Whoa! What idiocy! I hadn't heard anything about it, and since I don't watch any TV news shows I didn't see it. Was this covered in the papers? This is obnoxious. Who the fuck was this "Keith" flight attendant, I wonder, and what moron on the plane complained in the first place?? She looks like any other college-age girl (though she is brave, if not unaware, to expose bare thighs to filthy public seats -- ugh). Southwest a "family airline" my ass. I admit to having flown it only once and never again because I couldn't stand its cattle car nature, but the time I did, I distinctly recall immature frat boy antics and football sing-alongs by the passengers AND flight attendants. Where am I?! I wondered. A stadium?? Are the football hooligans going to be let loose any minute now? What a load of crap. Don't sue, Kyla, you'll just waste a lot of money; tell your story far and wide and embarrass the hell out of them.
'...that flight attendant (HE no less) was some Christianist with a bug up his ass about women!'
Or perhaps a too-tightly wrapped gentleman of the lavender persuasion, (also with a bug up his ass about women) on a power trip, looking for an excuse to play 'whack-a-hootchie'.
The young woman's return trip with no difficulties, wearing the same attire, puts the lie to the 'corporate policy' ruse, doesn't it?
Why do you hate men? Is it because you can't get one?
I'm a liberal, but these posts make me wish other liberals could be liberal like me, which means that I believe women cause all the world's problems.
Obviously that woman is just a slut/whore, which would be fine if I was trying to cop a feel at her in Hooters for a measley 6% tip, but is not at all ok for riding on an airplane! Unless she's sitting next to me, of course, because I'm such a great, charming guy that all the ladies love me.
But then again, she's probably one of those dumb broads who only dates jerks. Why can't she ever notice the Nice Guys like me?
I just thought this thread was way too pollution-free.
I, too, think it was one or more fundie Christianist passengers at work, and/or an uptight straight female or gay male flight attendant on a power trip. A gay woman or straight man would have simply thought, Okay...nice, and that would have been that. (I'm being charitabe--a couple of my straight male friends and one gay female friend, all of whom like platinum blondes, would have asked her for her number, but I digress.)
Thing is, there was, and is, no stated dress code as far as anyone is aware. If there is one, let's hear it before we spend money buying tickets. Also, as darkblack points out, the young lady flew home in the same outfit, no problem. And as someone who flies out of Florida, I can tell you I've seen MUCH skimpier stuff on board. Over at Ezra's, where I've crossposted this, some people are defending Southwest, saying they "had to draw the line somewhere." This leads me to believe that these guys have never, ever been to Florida, or for that matter, Southern California (home to the passenger in question). Since at LAX, for example, you can be standing in line next to a woman dressed (and looking) exactly like Ms. Ebbert and in the course of conversation find out she's a grandmother of four.
Miniskirts and tight sweaters aren't my choice of clothes for travel; I like to be ready to run down the aisle, climb over burning bodies, and kick open the emergency door without worrying about my undies showing. But I couldn't care less what others wear, as long as I don't have to look at errant private parts or "plumber's butts", which plenty of male passengers have on display when they sit splay-legged in aisle seats wearing running shorts, or lift a ninety-pound carryon into the overhead bin, forgetting (or perhaps not) that their pants are kinda low-slung. Are we going to start mandatory deplaning for guys wearing basketball tank-tops that reveal thick, sweaty thatches of armpit hair? I find that far more distasteful, and equally as commonplace as miniskirts.
You're married to someone whose family hails from southern Italy and he doesn't have much pit hair??
(Sorry about the digression, but I couldn't resist..... 
)
The airlines should be a lot more worried about their terrible performance record, their horrible policies regarding passengers being held hostage on delayed flights sitting on the runway, the fact that just about anything can be snuck on-board a passenger flight in a checked bag (this was on the news tonight), the miserable way they treat people who try to get answers to questions like "WHY haven't we TAKEN OFF yet?", the scuzzy air quality on board a plane in flight, and the ridiculous cost of flying in general.
Oh, and the fact that a pack of 30-something frat boy wannabes acted like assholes (sorry) on a Southwest flight my FAMILY and I were on last year, because they were all drunk to the gills, which gave them license (they thought) to verbally harrass every female on the plane. Including the stewies.
I feel better now. Pass the peanuts.
Let's not forget the way nurses used to dress.
Those white dresses and funky little hats.
And that reminds me of a story from my childhood.
I went to Catholic schools and 99% of the teachers were nuns. We had a few "lay teachers" and one was a beautiful young blonde named Miss Watson.
One day (this was 196
she came to school in a mini skirt. Several nuns barged into our class and sent her home to change into "something decent." She could hardly hold back the tears.
But, many of the parents were outraged and complained to our pastor about the way Miss Watson was treated. She wore mini skirts for the rest of the year and then quit.
OMG, Fritz, those women look like they're planning something totally evil and fun...uh-oh.
Great photo!
oddjob, R would never, ever wear a basketball tank top--not even, I suspect, to play basketball, which he doesn't play--but if he were to put one on and then board a plane for a business or pleasure trip? Well, dress warmly because it would mean Hell had just frozen over.
Ugh. Airlines' shitty treatment of passengers WAS Reason number 839 why I've begun using a super-cheap express bus service called Megabus. Now shitty airline treatment has moved up to, like, reason number 229. (Greyhound's shitty treatment of passengers is my number one reason for using Megabus...) I mean, they aren't perfect, but they beat the hell out of both airlines and Greyhound any day of the week as long as you're not traveling super-far. They're definitely not as comfy as Amtrak, but for the prices you can't really expect them to be.
having spent far too much of my time on airplanes and in airports lately all i can say is (invoking the shade of me da) hooly sayntid muthera sweet swettin' jaysus!. i ain't buying the airline's invoking of "passenger complaints" it makes far more sense that there was one, uptight crew member (or even ticket taker) who caused the fuss. there have been reporters all over this and not one passenger has come forward to say "i complained" or even "i know who complained." people who make complaints like that are shamelessly proud of their intolerance and selfrighteously convinced of their holiness and would not hide their bigotry.
i have a whole blessed week at home coming to me and i'm taking it. then, it's back to l.a. for a short gig.
this story is bullshit all the way and my old ad-game huckster's nose smells a put up or put on. somebody (probably hooter's but maybe southwest) has a corporate interest in making the news this way. (hooter's - our girls are so hot they are banned by TSA!)
they need good slogans and marketing on account of their food sux out loud. the only saving grace for southwest is that they have a decent on-time record. on flights of over 3 hours i go elsewhere.
I'd agree with the PR stunt theory if it hadn't happened two or three months ago. It's only now making waves because the young lady's mom was incensed and contacted a lawyer, who would appear to be now raising some hell in the public arena as a way to get Southwest to settle before trial. I'm not sure their behavior is actionable, but it could be argued that they caused her emotional pain and suffering, I suppose; certainly if they had caused her to miss her doctor's appointment, which they didn't, it would be.
I don't like any of the airlines--Southwest are control freaks ("Unpack your bag and remove three pounds worth of stuff and get back in line all over again, or pay the overweight fee") and their planes are filthy. But most planes are filthy. Air Tran seems to be one of our better finds these days--business class is reasonable compared to everyone else, and they fly where we need to go a lot of the time. All domestic US flights suck, though. Sardine cans with wings.
The sad thing is people choose for it to be that way. Given the choice between a more expensive ticket and a cheap ticket on a sardine can with wings the sardine can wins every time.
I can still remember being a little kid (on a propeller plane, not a jet) flying with my family from home in the morning from Buffalo to Philadelphia and being served a pancake breakfast on the flight.
i remember back during my heavy touring days when folks at regular stops from the sky caps on the curb to particular flight crews used to remember and take a little extra care for us. they knew that we flew lots of flights, and were always appreciative of a little coddling.
more than once it turned into backstage passes for entire crews, and, a few times for me, private concerts at the hotel afterwards.
(oh,those private concerts!)
I remember real food on planes, and most of all, I remember being treated like a queen if you were traveling with a baby. When we flew with my sister, who was just a few months old, the flight attendants had a bassinet all ready for us when we boarded, and the fluttered around my Mum all night, running back and forth to warm bottles.
Contrast that with our trip to Hawaii in 1996, traveling in "First Class", with Son Two only eight months old. I needed a bottle warmed, so I summoned the flight attendant. She looked at me as though I'd asked her to donate her kidney and rolled her eyes. "We don't have any way to do that," she said with a big sigh. Then she came back and handed me an air-sickness bag filled with boiling water and said, "You can put the bottle in this and it will warm up."
Yeah, hand a mother with a squirming eight-month-old baby a fucking bag of boiling water and tell her to hold it! Thank God I was still nursing part-time and was able to get by without bottles for the long flight, since the airlines were not going to be of any assistance whatsoever. Shameful. This was on Delta, by the way. Another much-hated airline.
Oh, and lucky you being in Florida and all, where Delta is often the only game in town!
- oddjob (one of the nicer things about Logan not being anybody's hub is that you don't end up being the captives of one airline)
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