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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Too Pretty to Fly?
Quote:
View: Too pretty to fly?
Source: Tampabays10
posted with the TFP thread generator
UPDATE: Dr. Phil will address this topic on Friday, March 14th's show. You can watch it at 5 p.m. EDT on Tampa Bay's 10.
Too pretty to fly?
Tampa, Florida Prejudice against pretty?
That's the claim from a pair of 18-year-old best friends from Oldsmar who were escorted off a Southwest Airlines plane.
USF student Nisreen Swedberg and friend Sarah Williams claim the flight crew was rude to them from the moment they stepped onto the plane at Tampa International Airport on February 14.
Swedberg said she asked a flight attendant for a bottle of water and was told she could wait until the rest of the flight was served.
And I patiently waited and then when they came around with water, they skipped me, Swedberg said.
At one point, Williams had to use the plane's bathroom. She saw another passenger in it, and when he hadn't come out 15 minutes later, she knocked on the door.
When he came out, Williams says the man came over to her seat and yelled a profanity at her. Williams admits she yelled a profanity back at him but was puzzled when she says the flight crew only questioned her.
I think they were just discriminating against because we were young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked like us except us, she said. [The flight attendants] were like older ladies. We were younger. Who knows, they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger.
Southwest defends the incident, saying the women caused a disruption on the flight.
When the plane landed in Los Angeles, the women were escorted off by four uniformed police officers and later questioned by the FBI.
Nearly two hours later, the women were released. No charges were filed.
Still, Williams and Swedberg say they were banned from all future Southwest Airlines flights, including their scheduled flight home to Tampa.
Swedberg spent $419.50 on a one-way return ticket and arrived at TIA on Monday. Williams is still in Los Angeles trying to find a cheaper flight home. She hopes to be back to Tampa by Saturday.
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Southwest Airlines response click to show Southwest Airlines would like to set the record straight regarding a situation involving two female Customers, Ms. Sarah Williams and Ms. Nisreen Swedberg, on Flight #3600 from Tampa Bay to Los Angeles on February 14, 2008. During this flight, the Flight Crew and several witnesses confirm that Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg's unruly behavior was touched off by an occupied lavatory. After banging on the door, Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg became verbally abusive and threatening toward the Customer who had been using the lavatory.
When Our Flight Crew addressed the situation with Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg, the two Customers continued their threatening behavior and abusive language. At this time, the Flight Crew requested that local police meet the flight upon its arrival in Los Angeles. The police questioned several witnesses, as well as Ms. Williams and Ms. Swedberg, who were later released. Contrary to reports, we did not ban these Customers from flying Southwest Airlines.
Our Employees must maintain a Safe and comfortable environment onboard the aircraft at all times. According to some news reports, this story has nothing to do with Ms. Swedberg and Ms. Williams' appearance, but rather their use of what other Passengers tell us was profanity and threatening behavior onboard one of our flights. Finally, we would have gone out of business a long time ago if we discriminated against beautiful women -- or anyone else for that matter. We carry almost 100 million Customers a year, and they are all beautiful in our eyes.
For members of the media who would like an interview or more information, please contact Southwest Airlines Public Relations at: 214-792-4847.
I dislike Dr. Phil, but one late night last weekend in the Extended Stay Hotel, I couldn't sleep and it was the only channel that had something that wasn't fuzzy.
You can watch Dr. Phil and see him discuss it with the individuals. The women stated they didn't claim they were too pretty, yet they emailed the station with those words on her email. She doesn't acknowledge their own bad behavior. He brought on Kayla Ebbert the girl who was not allowed to fly because of her short skirt. The girls attitude during the discussion is snotty, bitchy, and full of attitude.
One of the girls asks, "Since when is an airline responsible word choice and clothing preference rather..." Kayla rebuts stating, "Since it says on their statement that you can't act in a lewd or lascivious way."
Personally, I based on the footage I've seen of them discussing this situation, they have had attitudes that are snotty and stuck up. I don't believe that they didn't bring this on upon themselves by being little princesses thinking that people would cater to them like their mommy and daddy do. I think it has nothing to do with them being pretty, just them having attitudes that they should be treated differently than others. They did get treated differently, just not the differently they were expecting.
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Last edited by Cynthetiq; 03-28-2008 at 04:41 PM..
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