Thursday, September 13, 2007
U.S. Consumers Should Boycott Southwest "Islamic Fundamentalist" Airlines
If you are a woman flying on Southwest Airlines, here is how Southwest Airlines would apparently prefer you to dress.
According to the Associated Press on September 12, 2007, a second young woman has come forward to claim that Southwest Airlines employees made her cover up on a recent flight, leading jet-setters to ask: Will my outfit fly?
Setara Qassim said a flight attendant confronted her during the trip from Tucson, Arizona, to Burbank, California, and asked whether she had a sweater to go over her green halter-style dress.
Qassim, 21, told KNBC-TV in Los Angeles she was forced to wrap a blanket around herself for the rest of the flight. She complained that if Southwest wants passengers to dress a certain way, it should publish a dress code.
Each airline has filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation a series of statements about its obligations to its passengers and its limitations of liability. These tariffs and conditions are the terms of your contract with the airline, also known as a Contract of Carriage.
With regard to clothing, Southwest Airlines' Contract of Carriage provides:
"Carrier may refuse to transport or remove from the aircraft at any point any passenger in the following categories as may be necessary for the comfort or safety of such passenger or other passengers:
(1) Persons whose conduct is or has been known to be disorderly, abusive, offensive, threatening, intimidating, or violent, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently offensive;"
Southwest — which dressed its stewardesses in hot pants and called itself "the love airline" back in the 1970s — relies on employees to decide whether a passenger's attire may offend other customers. Apparently, Southwest Airlines allows its employees to decide on an ad-hoc basis when a person's clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently offensive. They claim they usually exercise this authority only when there are complaints from other passengers that someone's clothing makes them "uncomfortable."
However, let us assume, for the sake of argument, I found a certain man's business suit and tie to be patently offensive and it made me uncomfortable. Do you suppose Southwest Airlines would make the person cover up his or her suit and tie so that I would feel more comfortable? Of course not. So what's really going on?
Who gets to decide what is or is not offensive? Who are these self-righteous, moralistic clothing police going around looking up young women's skirts in airports and then complaining because they see too much? Perhaps Southwest Airlines should decree that all woman should wear burkas so that no one could possibly be uncomfortable with anyone's clothing choices. Isn't that the direction in which we are heading if we continue allowing the airlines to act as the clothing police? I thought we were fighting a war in order to preserve and protect our open and free American society from the repression inherent in the Islamic fundamentalist way of life? Southwest Airlines acting as the clothing police is just plain un-American!
As a private company, Southwest Airlines claims the right to refuse to transport, or remove from its aircraft, just about anyone it wants to for almost any reason. However, consumers are also free not to choose Southwest Airlines for their air travel needs. As long as Southwest Airlines feels it is appropriate to act as the clothing police by catering to the prudish sensibilities of a certain uptight and priggish segment of their passengers in refusing to transport young women whose clothes are deemed too "revealing" or otherwise "inappropriate," then I believe it is appropriate for U.S consumers to decline to be transported by Southwest Airlines.
As for myself, I wear a t-shirt and shorts whenever possible, but I'm also capable of determining appropriate dress when needed. I don't wear my earring to work and I wear at least a polo and slacks when I fly. I have the ability to discern what is appropriate dress and what is not. Many people these days do not.
Southwest has the right to deny any passenger and any passenger has the right not to fly Southwest. Southwest (or any other airline) is banking on asking one person to cover up rather than losing a couple of others who don't think one should be out in public in inappropriate atire.
For fun, try wearing whatever you want to court sometime. I went to traffic court wearing a polo and dress shorts. I had to leave because I wasn't wearing long pants and come back when I was dressed appropriately. Try boycotting a court.
Boycotting this or that is absurd and more than likely won't work. Plus, in this case, you most likely find that much support for your cause.
March 12, 2008
Contact:
John J. Tormey III, Esq.: ‘jtormey@optonline.net’, 1-212-410-4142
Tom Sullivan, “Quiet Rockland”: 1-845-480-1088
“QUIET ROCKLAND” CALLS FOR NATIONWIDE BOYCOTT OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
Rockland County, NY – March 12, 2008:
Aero-activist group Quiet Rockland of Rockland County, New York, enraged over “callous criminal disregard for safety and human life” demonstrated by Southwest Airlines (NYSE: “LUV”) and the FAA, today called for: (1) a nationwide traveler and consumer boycott of Southwest, and (2) a federal criminal investigation of Southwest and “failed regulator” FAA to be spear-headed by the United States Attorney General and a special prosecutor.
Said John J. Tormey III, Esq., attorney and Quiet Rockland co-founder: “The persons that should be flying Southwest at this point, should be only those referred by Doctor Kevorkian. Although the depraved Southwest spin-machine audaciously ‘assures’ us Southwest’s six (6) cracked-fuselage aircraft were “never a safety problem”, Southwest should tell that to the victims of the 1988 Aloha Airlines disaster. There, metal fatigue on an aging Boeing 737 caused 18 feet of fuselage to be ripped off the plane causing grievous injuries and loss of life. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar in his press conference Saturday, posted on “www.cspan.org”, presented detailed evidence incriminating Southwest and “Bobby” Sturgell’s failed FAA. The incriminating events occurred while “Bobby” Sturgell was Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the FAA. On Saturday, Representative Oberstar thereupon rightfully excoriated the aero-perps for their long-standing “tombstone mentality”. Although criminal and morally reprehensible, and now apparent after a many-month detailed Congressional investigation, Southwest and FAA are clearly in the insalubrious business of making those tombstones happen, in addition to simply reacting to those tombstones post facto.
“As recently as last year, Southwest Airlines, with the complicity of supposed federal regulator FAA, on at least 47 of Southwest’s Boeing 737 aircraft, on between 1,451 and 60,000 flights, over a period of two-and-one-half years, deliberately put approximately 200,000 or more unsuspecting travelers in harm’s way - making them fly in un-inspected, non-compliant, aged, and in some cases fuselage-cracked commercial aircraft. Southwest knew the names and faces of their potential victims. Southwest gladly took their money, and for that matter at this point Southwest owes each of them at least a rebate in full of their ticket prices. This was not mere negligence. Irrespective of what forensic lesser charge might technically ultimately apply once further Congressional investigation concludes, the acts and omissions of Southwest and collaborator FAA were tantamount to attempted murder, on a massive scale.
“This WILL not stand.
“Quiet Rockland asks and encourages those Southwest employees tired of subscribing to their company’s tombstone culture, to leave their sinking airship now to find other and better employ at a responsible airline that actually acknowledges the dignity of the individual human traveler. We further ask every American consumer to now act in solidarity - cancel all flights and other business with Southwest – boycott the airline which we today re-name “Air Kevorkian” - and just say “No” to Southwest, to FAA, and to the greed of the aeromercantile complex that continually and habitually puts profits over people’s lives. And, as to Southwest stockholders? Vote your conscience”.#
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