Spirit Airlines Bans “Lewd” Body Art And See-Through Clothing

Spirit Airlines has updated its contract of carriage and included in the update are stricter and more clearly defined rules concerning acceptable dress and appearance onboard. I commend Spirit for this dress code update.

Spirit Airlines Updates Dress Code

Spirit has now added more specificity to its dress code, specifically banning see-through clothing, the inadequate covering of “private” parts, and body art that may be lewd or offensive.

§4.3 of the updated contract of carriage states:

A guest shall not be permitted to board the aircraft or may be required to leave an aircraft if that guest…is barefoot or inadequately clothed (i.e., see-through clothing; not adequately covered; exposed breasts, buttocks, or other private parts), or whose clothing or article, including body art, is lewd, obscene, or offensive in nature.

Its previous verbiage was more general and did not mention body art:

A guest shall not be permitted to board the aircraft or may be required to leave an aircraft if that guest…is barefoot or inadequately clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene, or offensive in nature.

Spirit warns that if passengers are denied service for violating the rules, they will not receive a refund.

Living in LA, I may be numb to see-through clothes or vulgar tattoos, but I appreciate that Spirit is clarifying its standards, which should reduce incidents onboard like an entire family being thrown off last summer because a male flight attendant thought two females in the party were innapratiely dressed in crop tops:

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Folks, from a utilitarian perspective and to promote peace onboard, I think it is reasonable to ask people to cover up and dress in a manner that is not going to make others uncomfortable. If you have a vulgar tattoo, cover it up. If you are showing too much skin, put on a sweater.

That’s really not too much to ask…

Hopefully, the new standards will promote clarity and lead to fewer messy confrontations onboard. There’s still a great deal of discretion in determining what “lewd, obscene, or offensive” is, but this helps.