Thrown off plane for outfit deemed too skimpy

It doesn’t take much to get thrown off an
airplane these days, as Kyla Ebbert found out when a Southwest Airlines
employee told her she was too bare for the air. Two months later, she’s
still trying to figure out what was wrong with her outfit.

In
an exclusive appearance Friday on TODAY, Ebbert modeled the outfit she
says she wore on the flight in question. It consisted of a snug-fitting
white top with a scoop neck that stopped just short of showing cleavage.
Over
the shirt was a green sweater that buttoned underneath her bosom. It
was finished with high-heeled sandals and a white denim mini-skirt with
a fashionably frayed hem.

It was a lot more clothing than the
23-year-old college student wears on her job as a Hooters waitress. Her
mother, Michele Ebbert, said she would have told her daughter if the
outfit was inappropriate.

“But her outfit is fine, Michele Ebbert told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer. “She looks like every other college girl in San Diego.”
Not
according to a Southwest employee identified only as “Keith,” who
approached Ebbert after she had taken her seat on the plane and was
listening to the flight attendants go through their pre-departure
routine.
He asked
her to step off of the plane and when they were in the jetway, he told
her that her clothing was inappropriate and asked her to change her
clothes.
“He told
me, ‘I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to take a later flight. You’re
dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re dressed too
provocative to fly on this flight,’ ” she told Lauer.

“I said, ‘What part of it, the shirt, the
skirt? Which part?’ “ Ebbert continued, recounting her conversation
with Keith about her outfit. “And he said, ‘The whole thing.’“ I said,
‘I didn’t bring any luggage with me. I don’t have anything to change
into. What can I do to make sure I can get onto that flight?’ I had a
doctor’s appointment. I had to be there.”

“He
said ‘You can go to the gift shop and you can buy something to wear
there. Until then, you’re not flying on this flight,’ ” Ebbert said.
A
compromise was finally reached when Ebbert promised to pull up her top,
which wasn’t showing cleavage to begin with, and pull down her tiny
skirt.
Ebbert went back onto the plane and to her seat, feeling that every eye on the plane was staring at her.
“I was humiliated. I was embarrassed. They all heard him lecturing me,” she said.

She asked for a blanket, covered her legs, and
cried quietly all the way to Tucson. When she got off the plane, she
called her mother.

“She
was just devastated,” Michele told Lauer. “She said, ‘Mom, I can’t
believe what just happened to me.’ She was. She said ‘I didn’t want to
make a scene. I didn’t want to draw attention. I just sat there
crying.’ ”

No apology

When
Michele saw a picture her daughter emailed from her cell phone, she
couldn’t believe what had happened. She also thought to herself, “Oh,
no. They don’t do this and get away with it.”
The
San Diego Union-Tribune called Southwest Airlines and asked if the
airline had a dress code. Could, for example, a woman board wearing a
bikini top?
The
newspaper on Tuesday quoted the Southwest agent it spoke with as
saying, “We don't have a problem with it if she's covered up in all the
right spots. We don't have a dress code.”
The
Ebberts had not gone public with the story, which happened two months
ago, asking only for an apology from the airline. But none was
forthcoming.
In
response to a TODAY Show query, the airline sent the following
statement: "Southwest Airlines was responding to a concern about Ms.
Ebbert's revealing attire on the flight that day. As a compromise, we
asked her to adjust her clothing to be less revealing, she complied,
and she traveled as scheduled. When a concern is brought to our
Employees' attention, we address that situation directly with the
Customer(s) involved in a discreet and professional manner.
Fortunately, as an airline that carries approximately 96 million
Customers a year, these situations are extremely rare."
The Ebberts have engaged an attorney, Martin Reed, to help them decide what to do next.
Asked
if he will file suit, Reed told Lauer, “We’ve not made that decision,
yet. We’re considering all the facts and all the circumstances.”
“Initially,
I just wanted an apology,” Kyla told Lauer. “At this point, just some
acknowledgement that they were wrong. That would be better.”
What
really tops the whole story off is that Ebbert wore the same outfit on
the return flight to San Diego later that day. A female flight
attendant also took note of it, according to Ebbert.
“I was complimented by the stewardess on my return flight,” she said.