Airline Dress Codes: What Constitutes “Offensive” Clothing? Does This Count?

Every so often, we see airlines remove people from aircraft for violating their vague dress codes. In this post, I’d like to talk about that in a bit more detail, because I saw some shirts at an airport today that sure caught me off guard…

Airlines ban “offensive” clothing, but what does that mean?

Nowadays you hardly have to dress up to fly commercially, regardless of the airline that you’re flying on, or the cabin you’re flying in. Airlines do have dress codes, but they’re very basic. When passengers book air travel, they have to agree to the contract of carriage, so that’s what dictates the rules that passengers must follow.

So, what do airline contracts of carriage say regarding dress codes onboard aircraft?

• American Airlines says: “Dress appropriately; bare feet or offensive clothing aren’t allowed”
• Delta Air Lines says: “Delta may refuse to transport or may remove passengers from its aircraft when the passenger’s conduct, attire, hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers”
• Southwest Airlines says: “Disruptive or unruly conduct includes engaging in lewd, obscene, or patently offensive behavior, including wearing clothes that are lewd, obscene, or patently offensive”
• United Airlines says: “UA shall have the right to refuse transport on a permanent or temporary basis or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any passengers who are barefoot, not properly clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive”

As you can see, each airline bans “offensive” clothing, but doesn’t actually spell out what that means. That’s fair enough, and as I see it, this can be interpreted in two ways:

• Clothing can be interpreted as offensive on account of what’s written or pictured on it
• Clothing can be interpreted as offensive based on how revealing it is

There’s ultimately no data on how often dress codes are actually enforced, but at least in terms of the stories that get a lot of publicity, they tend to involve women who are on the curvier side, who get told that they need to cover up. I think there’s typically some bias there against women with certain types of bodies, and I think that’s not a great precedent.

But what kind of clothing is otherwise offensive? I mean, my inclination would be to say that if you wouldn’t feel comfortable explaining to your child what’s on a shirt, it’s probably “offensive.”

The provocative shirts I saw at the airport today

While flying out of an airport this morning prior to an American flight, I spotted a group of four people traveling together. I’d assume they were two couples, and they were probably somewhere between 50 and 70. Clearly thy coordinated their outfits, or something, because all four of them had, umm, controversial t-shirts. For example:

• One man was wearing a shirt with a picture of a confused-looking Joe Biden, which read “WHO SH*T MY PANTS?” (with the second word fully written out — it was this shirt)
• The other man was wearing a shirt that said “NEVER KILLED A MOUNTAIN LION BUT I’VE CHOKED A COUGAR” (it was this shirt)

I’m curious to hear from others — do you find one or both of those shirts to be offensive? My inclination is that they’re both offensive, and both people should be asked to cover up. Let me be 100% clear — this isn’t about my own political beliefs, or anything like that. I’d feel the same way if someone wore one of those “F*CK TRUMP” shirts, a shirt joking about Charlie Kirk being killed, etc. I think those people should be asked to change as well.

These people didn’t end up being on my flight, or else I would’ve probably given the crew a polite heads upon boarding, and then they could’ve done with that what they wanted. I would’ve said something along the lines of “hey, I’d like to give you a heads up that there will be some people boarding shortly who are violating American’s dress code against offensive clothing.”

But I don’t claim that my opinion is right. I understand it’s very hard for airlines to create specific policies around what is and isn’t allowed, since discretion is important. But I’d love to hear where others think the line should be.

Is any shirt with a cuss word on it offensive? Does it depend which word it is? What about if one of the letters isn’t written out? And then what about shirts with sexual humor, especially if they’re about potential sexual violence (hey, I get it can be a kink as well, but I’m not sure that needs to be shared in a family environment)?

Bottom line

Over the years I’ve written a good number of stories about people being removed from planes for violating dress codes. The thing is, these rules are quite vague, simply banning “offensive” clothing, whatever that means. It goes without saying that different people are offended by different things. Heck, some people may be offended by leather, furs, etc.

Where should the line be regarding what constitutes offensive clothing? Do you think it’s more about what is written or displayed on clothing, or how the clothing is worn?