A woman claims she was kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to remove a profanity-laden anti-drug mask, again placing the spotlight on American’s vague and inconsistently-enforced dress code.
Another F-Bomb Mask Incident On American Airlines, A Different Outcome
The F-bomb seems to stir up all sorts of emotions when invoked. And even going back to the seminal Cohen v. California case, Courts have struggled over the fine line between decency and political expression.
Of course an airplane is not the public square and not subject to the First Amendment. AA’s dress code can be comically arbitrary as long as it does not discriminate against a protected class.
But AA’s treatment of the f-bomb has been inconsistent, to put it nicely.
- In one instance, a passenger was kicked off for wearing a F*** cancer hoodie, but then American Airlines apologized. It said it should have “taken the broader context of the message displayed on the customer’s shirt into consideration.”
- In another instance, a passengers was kicked off for wearing a F*** 12 mask, an anti-police message that grew popular during the George Floyd protests and riots.
To makes matters worse in this case the passenger flew the first leg of her journey without issue, boarded her second flight without issue, and was only removed after one flight attendant was apparently offended and notified the captain, who finally came out and sided with the flight attendant.
Yeah so @AmericanAir just kicked me off my flight because I refused to change my mask… Im so confused I thought this was a free country! #fuckfentanyl #fentanylkilledmyson pic.twitter.com/E0ArkhOKT4
— Traci ❤️ Lizzy Storm (@LizzyStorm4Uxxx) October 29, 2021
Arguably, American Airlines is between a rock and a hard place. A general policy has advantages over specific “can” and “cannot” rules. But now the f-bomb has come up three times and each outcome was different.
Without making an inflexible black-and-white rule, American Airlines should set a policy on the f-word and other vulgar words. Are they appropriate in certain contexts or never appropriate?
However we can distinguish a lethal drug from the police from cancer, passengers should reasonably expect consistent enforcement in AA’s dress code. That clearly did not happen here and gives the passenger solid ground upon which to be angry, even if she should never have worn the mask in the first place.
CONCLUSION
American Airlines should decide once and for all how it wants to address the f-word on clothing, communicate it to employees, and move on. I don’t think a conditional approach works here. Either allow it or not. But please just make a decision.
(H/T: View From The Wing)
It’s not hard….ban the F word on everything. Even if it’s a good cause such as cancer or this, you are opening yourself to someone’s opinion on what is an “acceptable” use of the word if you allow it in certain situations.. It’s still an offensive word that kids don’t need to see.
It’s isn’t that hard, what happened to common sense?
I hate to get into a debate on a frequent flyer/luxury flying blog, but to me, it’s not just “what happened to common sense?” but what happened to common decency, community standards, etc. This is far more of a lame “look at me flaunting basic decorum” as opposed to a message that needs to get out there. (And as pointed out, there are ways to fight for the cause and highlight said cause, that won’t be offensive in the least.)
“I thought this was a free country.” LOL, what a maroon!!
So having something that says F*** is ok with you? Got any kids Matt? Do you tell them the word F*** is ok to say? Shame a company cant have rules without being chastized by an online article.
@Spencer: Try reading the article, then comment.
BTW, I hate cursing:
https://liveandletsfly.com/frontier-airlines-thug/
Can people just try to be less trashy?
Aren’t there just more important things to worry about? She knew what she was doing, but what benefit was there to anybody by kicking her off? The flight was probably delayed, there certainly was paperwork, the media has picked it up, some people at AA will have to spend half of today answering media inquiries. The F word didn’t hurt the FA and there’s no way it truly offended her because you can’t go out in public for more than 5 minutes without hearing profanity. I think it would have been better to just live and let fly.
Time, Place and Manner are the limitations on freedom of speech. She hit the limit. There should be a fine for selfish people who delay others’ travels when there is a quick and cheap way to comply.
Apologies about my fixation on legal stuff, but I find it rather surprising that airline services in the USA are seen as private spaces for airlines to use as they see fit; flights are open to the public, airlines are highly regulated by govt agencies, subject to things like slot restrictions and bilateral frequency agreements, and with the pandemic they have received billions in taxpayer funding. There don’t seem to be many industries enjoying a closer relationship with the state- I can only think of banks, healthcare, and military suppliers/contractors. Within that context, you would’ve thought that the state would take a more active interest in how these things are managed.
(For anyone struggling with reading comprehension: I am not suggesting that state intervention in the airline business is a good thing per se)
Why should this end with passenger removal, rather than mask removal?
The crew should have judgement (within the policy), and if they consider a mask offensive they can politely instruct the customer to remove it (and provide an alternative mask).
A minute of inconvenience and the flight proceeds normally.
But when a passenger has the attitude of “don’t tell me what to do”, then we get trouble. Such passengers are rightly removed.
I see everyone’s point of view here, I am the kind of person that if I visit any home in which I am asked to remove my shoes, I do so and do not take offend. Same here, if I enter any business and ask to comply with a request that is rather simple to follow, I just do it even if I may not like it, then choose if I want to return. In this case it was much easier to comply than to ignore.