PVDtoDEL

No. Revenue passengers are all treated equally, regardless of how much they paid for the ticket. You'd have to really be asking for it to get denied boarding on a revenue ticket.

MSPeconomist

NO, award tickets and those paid with vouchers, etc. are considered revenue tickets. The nonrev dress code doesn't apply.

That's not to say that somewhere some GA or FA won't be confused about whether in fact a revenue passenger is flying nonrev, but this is just as likely to happen with tickets paid with money rather than miles/vouchers/etc.

qukslvr619

Everyone keeps talking about how sexist/double standard that the dad was allowed to wear shorts. Yet the non-rev dress code allows women to wear shorts as well....they could have changed into shorts and then what would the issue be?

Sweatpants aren't allowed; the female equivalent, at least material wise, are leggings. UA chooses to not allow either if you fly on a pass. That is basically all that happened. The blogger, like most of the people who bashed UA before knowing all the facts clearly will take anything and run with it for their own self-serving interests. Calling for a ban/xl tickets/etc. is just ridiculous.

MSPeconomist

It's not clear that there was a dad with the two teens who were denied boarding as nonrevs. My understanding is that there might have been a father with the ten year old revenue passenger in gray leggings who added the dress that wasn't required.

Revenue passengers are free to wear shorts, regardless of gender and age.

Note that some of the stories on the internet are posted with file pictures, not pictures of actually passengers on the flight in question. In particular, I suspect this is the case for the photo of the girl in hot pink leggings.

Loren Pechtel

Saggy pants.

RoadWarrior200

At the company where I was a senior officer, all staff were required to dress conservatively, not chew gum or smoke in front of customers, etc. Because how we looked and behaved reflected very visibly on us and our company. Same for United and the other airlines. Instead of upgrading, I increasingly pay a first or business class fare. I periodically sit next to people who work for the airline or have a family and friends ticket. I tell them how much I appreciate the airline and the people who work there. But if my seatmate is in flip flops or other inappropriate attire, I think instead, what is this company coming to?

What the dress rules should be I leave to the airlines. They in turn would be smart to get input from their own employees. But in the process, please remember, people flying on friends & family passes do indeed symbolize your company, for better or worse.

jspira

What would that have to do with rules for non-revenue travel?

jspira

This expresses the reason for the dress code very succinctly. United employees (and by extension family members tapping into employee benefits) are in fact in front of customers.

FlyngSvyr

This is the thing that really irks me about this story. So much sloppy journalism by almost all the news sources has perpetuated a falsehood started by the initial tweeter.

The 10 year old and her Dad have become the center of this story for so many people and they were not the non-revs that were denied boarding. The news cycle is about to move on from this story and I dare say that probably 70% or more of the people have the situation wrong in their minds. Even if they agree with United, they think the Dad and 10 year old were the non-revs. Ridiculous.

jspira

I concur and originally, when our (i.e. Frequent Business Traveler's) news editor asked me my opinion as to whether we should even cover this, I said no. Once I learnt (fairly early on) that this involved an NRSA dress code, I then told the editor to cover it using a very clear headline which was:

Two Girls Barred from Flying United for Wearing Leggings Were Subject to Employee Dress Code

and our editor made sure that the NRSA issue was early on in the story:

Even basic facts, such as the dress code is not publicly available on the web (it is on the flyzed site and probably elsewhere), were wrong in almost all of the stories.

The only good thing I can think about the story is that it briefly eclipsed stories about the president and what is going on in Washington.
.

This link is to an online source to which I contribute and/or have a financial interest.

spin88

(1) I agree that certain type of clothing are NOT appropriate. Not for passengers, and to the extent pass travelers are more w/i UA's control, certainly not them. The bans on ripped clothing, wearing underwear, etc, make perfect sense. Here is how Delta cheekly tweated out their policy:

"@fredericl We don't have an item-specific clothing policy, but we encourage no swimwear, sleepwear or underwear as your outerwear. 😃"


I don't see anyone defending employees wearing rap style clothing with their underwear showing...

(2) The nub of the dispute is "leggins" You suggest (and many people here assume) that they are banned. Yet the policy is no " Form-fitting lycra/spandex tops, pants and dresses." My SO - who has worked for many years in marketing in the fashion industry says that there is no way that leggings are any of those things. She says that leggings are not made of lycra/spandex as it does not form the outer part of the fabrique, and that they are a different area of clothing in the industry, designed for casual wear, not athletics. She never would have seen leggings as banned, even reading the policy.

There is a subconscious view by some on this board that "united makes the rules" so when they interpret them, they are correct. My lawyerly side says that its not so clear that the pass holders would have seen an issue, and I suspect if they were actually leggins, not "spandex/lycra tights" that many GAs would not have had an issue either. I don't know what the team was actually wearing.

(3) lawyerly responses, like quoting the CoC got UA into trouble here, and then they got sucked into a cultural war over women's clothing. Anyone who has ever dated/been married, hell even been a (non-gay) male friend of a woman, knows "don't comment on what a woman wears" @:-)@:-)@:-) It never, never, never ends well. My guess is that United's twitter staff is male, I get a feeling that Delta's is more mixed, its is IMHO part of why Delta does better at social media

No, Delta used social media exactly how it is supposed to be used. For those not following the link, Delta tweated out:

"Flying Delta means comfort. (That means you can wear your leggings. &#128521"

then when a UA flier/loyalist said "cheap shot" delta responded:

"@fredericl We don't have an item-specific clothing policy, but we encourage no swimwear, sleepwear or underwear as your outerwear. 😃"

then someone says:

"@Delta love the joke but comfort...im 6 foot tall and my knees touch the front seat not too comfortable. Don't look forward to this flight."

Delta asked for his flight details, and then posted this:

"@Julio_Party_Boy I was able to assign both of you emergency exit row seats with a little more leg room."

The contrast with United's frequently bot like defensiveness on Twitter is very stark.

This was the big, big mistake. United's first response is to defend themselves with anything that is lying around. It does not end well.

fredc84

The problem that could arise from this story is for the United employees, all of them, not just the ones involved in this incident. United might get to the point where they decide this is too much of a PR nightmare and so to prevent it from happening, they get rid of the pass benefit for non-employees. My airline has changed theirs several times, we used to be able to give passes to anyone, now we have to designate one person only to give them to. If you are married, you can't do that...but immediate family (ie. spouse, kids, parents) are all included.

So all the twitter idiots with their accusations may screw-over the very folks they claim to be supporting here.

jspira

The PR nightmare arose from the nosy busybody who sent the initial tweet, and was not the employee's doing. I don't think United (or any airline) would throw the baby out with the bathwater and rein in the use of passes per se - indeed we have no evidence that the two non-rev travelers were not in fact immediate family members who simply forgot or disregarded the dress code. The two did not (reportedly) even make a fuss when told about it.

On the plus side, at this point in time, no one should be able to feign ignorance about pass travel dress codes going forward

fredc84

I'm not talking about the fuss at the gate, just all the internet/twitter fuss. And they wouldn't be throwing out "baby out with the bathwater" by changing their non-rev policy and making it more restrictive...they don't make money on non-revs.

jspira

It's not a question of revenue from non-revs. Rather, employees value their travel benefits very highly and any restrictions placed thereupon would greatly impact morale and partially undo the progress Oscar has made in employer-employee relations since becoming CEO.