Just goes to prove that the USA is still hung up about such stupid things as this yet has no problem when they travel around the world and we all have to listen to how loud they talk, watch how much they eat and live in fear of one of them sitting next to us and taking up half our seats. There was also a load of hoo hah over the new catwomen movie and they were claiming Halle Berry showed too much of her body. What a bunch of prudes

Airline Gets Shirty Over T-shirt Boob



American Airlines spokesperson er said that crew members acted properly


A couple returning home from a Costa Rican holiday was kicked off an American Airlines flight because crew members considered a T-shirt one of them was wearing obscene.

Oscar Arela and his girlfriend were removed from Flight 952, at Miami International Airport, after he refused to change his T-shirt depicting a bare breast.

The couple, who were making a connecting flight, said nobody on their earlier flight objected to the shirt and claimed the airline violated their constitutional right to free speech.

"It's a picture of a man and woman, and the woman's breast is showing," said his girlfriend, Tala Tow. "The flight attendant basically walked up to us and yelled, 'You have to take off that shirt right now'".

American Airlines spokesperson Tim Wagner said that crew members acted properly, and the shirt was more graphic than the couple described. The airline gave them a refund.

Mr Wagner said that American Airlines' policy clearly stated that someone "clothed in a manner that would cause discomfort or offence to other passengers" can be removed from a flight

Haven't seen the offending shirt. Therefore no comment.

Seconded. I'd like to see this shirt myself.

So, we must conclude she was expected to fly topless because the image of boobs would inconvenience other passengers.

Whew! It's been quite a while since I've seen such hard core anti-American tourist sentiments. Actually it's been just over three years now in fact. Sort of thought it had gone away during the three year period when fat, loud, prudish American tourists and their equally fat, loud wallets stayed home in droves and sent the international tourism industry into a tailspin.

Now that American travelers are once again venturing out into the world, be sure and let us know where you don't want fat, loud, prudish Americans to visit, and we'll do our best to accomodate you.

Nothing wrong with sharing the newspaper article here, and commenting on the airline staff's reaction (which I, too, consider a bit OTT) - but I think that making racist slurs about ANY nation is against the spirit of FT.

Not to mention that us Americans use too much pesky punctuation!

Whoever heard of an "American race"?

Could this be another one of those cases where British and American usage differ?

We tend to use the word "racist" in a wider sense here - not just when referring to bias against other ethnic groups, but also when referring to bias against other nations and cultures.

Personally, I think the poster is just trying to stir up trouble. I mean..posting something like that on a board that is visited by a large amount of Americans is just asking for trouble.

Plus it was just plain rude.

Ignore-rant!

I still want to see a picture of this shirt.

Thanks to Google News we can at least see the sources for the story, but unfortunately not the shirt that started it: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.new...ess=1&id=50253
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3526864.stm
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/26047.htm

Around here, we call that "being American".

("freedom fries" and all that...)

I can't see where this will lead that is anything desirable for FlyerTalk. This topic is appropriate for Newstand where there is already a thread on it. Please take the discussion there.

--richard, moderator