Billie Joe Armstrong and His Sagging Pants

Billie Joe Armstrong, the leader singer and guitarist for the band Green Day, was thrown off of a Southwest Airlines flight for refusing to pull up his sagging pants. According to witnesses, after the flight attendant asked him to pull up his pants, he retorted that she had better things to worry about and refused. The argument culminated with Armstrong being removed from the plane. The incident was shortly resolved by customer service, who put Armstrong on the next flight, but this doesn’t solve the bigger issue. The thing is, this isn’t the first time Southwest Airlines has been involved in cases of passengers being asked to change their clothing or get off the plane. JetBlue and other airlines have employees that are also guilty of this behavior.

Now, I understand the reasoning behind giving flight attendants the power to remove disruptive passengers. It’s difficult to determine which passengers are just refusing to listen and who might become a safety risk later. But what gives them the right to be the fashion police? A low-cut shirt on a woman or sagging pants on a man are not safety issues. As long as the individual is within the decency laws of the local area, no one has the right to ask them to dress any differently. I’d say if Armstrong got through security and the rest of the airport until he reached the plane, his pants can’t be that big a problem to anyone but the flight attendant. Flight attendants are not judges of morality, they are safety officers.

There needs to be a process for closely examining any case where a flight attendant makes use of their power to remove a passenger. If there is an issue that truly requires this power, the flight attendant shouldn’t mind a little scrutiny, and it might stop some of these flagrant abuses of power.