Two southern California women say they were removed from a Spirit Airlines flight last week for wearing crop tops. A flight attendant instructed the friends to disembark their New Orleans-bound flight before the plane could depart from Los Angeles international airport, they told a local news station.
The friends, Tara Kehidi and Teresa Araujo, were wearing sweaters when they boarded the plane, but removed them because the air conditioning was not functioning.
“We were wearing crop tops ... just like a little bit of stomach showing,” Kehidi told the ABC news affiliate KABC. When a male flight attendant told her and Araujo to “put something on”, the friend asked: “Can we see a dress code? Like, is there a policy that says we can’t wear crop tops on the plane?”
Another woman sitting in the row in front of Kehidi and Araujo told the station that the temperature on the plane had forced most of its passengers to remove their sweaters.
“I said, ‘Well, if your body is inappropriate, then so is mine because I also have a crop top under my sweater.’ And I took my sweater off and I was like: ‘So if they’re kicking you off the flight, then they’re also going to have to kick me and my toddler off of the flight,’” said Carla Hager, who was traveling with her child.
Kehidi and Araujo ultimately offered to put their sweaters back on, but the three women and Hager’s toddler were all removed from the flight with no refund.
“Everyone in the plane was looking at us,” Araujo said. She said that she and Kehidi felt like they were being “treated like criminals”.
Although the majority of airlines have a dress code, they are often vague and left up to flight attendants to enforce – leading many female passengers to point out sexist differences in that enforcement.
In a statement to KABC, Spirit Airlines said: “Our Contract of Carriage, a document all Guests agree to upon making a reservation with us, includes certain clothing standards for all Guests traveling with us. We are investigating the matter, and we are in contact with the Guests about their experience.”
The airline’s Contract of Carriage says passengers may be asked to leave a flight if they are “inadequately clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive in nature”.
Kehidi and Araujo ultimately spent $1,000 rebooking on to a Delta flight to New Orleans in order to celebrate Kehidi’s 30th birthday.
They told KABC that they were interested in pursuing legal action against Spirit. The budget airline has a history of headline-making snafus: from putting an unaccompanied minor on the wrong flight to stranding thousands of passengers with cancelled and delayed flights.