‘My pants are not see-through’: Frontier Airlines customer says she had to change mid-flight after flight attendant confronted her over her shorts
A contentious exchange regarding a passenger’s attire on a Frontier Airlines flight has some calling the flight attendant “drunk” for how she spoke.
In a viral TikTok posted by Nereidaa (@a90sbabygirl), a flight attendant named Katie begins by saying, “I’m not even gonna tolerate that because I don’t racially profile at all.” While The Mary Sue cannot verify whether she was intoxicated, her pronunciation of the word “tolerate” may have sounded like slurred speech to commenters.
The passenger filming says she will not tolerate the situation either because the flight attendant is asking her to change clothes, but not asking two other passengers, “who are wearing less clothes than me.”
What’s wrong with her clothes?
Nereidaa then says she looked up the airline’s policy, and it states that passengers cannot wear see-through clothes. “Your pants are see-through,” Katie says, which Nereidaa denies. She then shows her stretchy pink shorts on camera. They appear opaque from the angle. “I’m sorry. I do not see the skin of my color between my pants,” the passenger says.
Nereidaa says she is reporting Katie, to which the flight attendant replies, “I don’t care.” She insists she is just doing her job as she uses the telecom to phone someone else on the plane.
“Hey, I’m like being harassed in the back. Like, extremely,” Katie says when someone picks up. “OK. Um, her camera is less than a foot from my face.”
At this point, Nereidaa steps back, and Katie’s dialogue becomes more difficult to hear over the sound of the plane.
She calls the front
“I asked her before she got on the plane—two hours before she got on the plane—to change her clothes,” Katie says. “She didn’t change her clothes.” She then appears to describe Nereidaa’s outfit, but she is unintelligible. “And, I asked her again before we took off to change them,” Katie continues. “And I told her that she had to change ‘em once we were in the air, so her flight didn’t get canceled and our flight didn’t get canceled. So I don’t—”
She concludes by saying she will call to the front.
In the on-screen caption, Nereidaa writes, “Watch this flight attendant threaten to call the cops and cancel our flight over my OUTFIT,” accompanied by a crying emoji. Notably, you cannot hear Katie threaten to call the police in the two-minute video.
After a commenter begged for a second part, Nereidaa posted a six-second follow-up video showing that she was not the only one on the aircraft wearing shorts. The passenger she films appears to be wearing shorts that are as short or shorter than hers. They are also opaque.
‘Illegal behavior’
In this video, she also shows a red notice card that Katie gave her. She says, “After handing me this notice, she talked with the pilot & let me be. Must have been told she was in the wrong.”
The notice reads:
NOTICE TO CEASE OBJECTIONABLE AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR
Your behavior is violating federal law. Your immediate cooperation is required if you wish to avoid prosecution and removal from the aircraft at the next point of arrival.
THIS IS A FORMAL WARNING THAT FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS THE FOLLOWING:
- Interference with an airline crewmember. (14CFR 91.11)
- Smoking on any Frontier flight, including in the lavatory. This includes the use of vape products. (14CFR 121.317)
- Drinking any alcoholic beverage unless provided by a crewmember. (14CFR 121.575)
An incident report will be filed with the Federal Aviation Administration. Your immediate cooperation is required if you wish to avoid possible prosecution by law enforcement and/or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The Federal Aviation Act provides for civil fines of up to $10,000 and, in the case of interference with the performance of a crewmember’s duties, imprisonment for up to 20 years, or both.”
It seems she was served this notice as her refusal to change was seen as “Interference with an airline crewmember.”
Another flight attendant gets involved
In a subsequent follow-up video, Katie brings one of her co-workers and says Nereidaa will have to talk to her. The co-worker asks the TikToker to stop filming, which she refuses because she wants documentation of the situation.
In another video, posted before the one on the flight that received 1.4 million views, Nereidaa shows Katie telling her pre-flight that she is violating the dress code. She tells the passenger, “I don’t, like, wanna embarrass you or anything.” The passenger then shows what she was wearing: a gray tank top and pink shorts. The shorts are quite short, but they are not see-through as Katie claimed.
Nereidaa further explains the situation in another follow-up video. She says when Katie approached her pre-flight and said her shorts were too short, she initially agreed to change to avoid conflict. However, due to the rainy weather in Atlanta, all her other clothes were wet. On top of that, she noticed other people in similar attire and wondered why she was being singled out. She approached management, explaining her situation, and was told her outfit was fine, so she did not change.
She boards without issue.
The problem came when she went to the bathroom mid-flight, and Katie caught her on the way back to her seat. Noticing that Nereidaa hadn’t changed, she made the request again. When Nereidaa said others were wearing shorts as short as hers, she says Katie then changed her reasoning to the shorts being see-through. Nereidaa says that after being held in the back for 10 minutes, she was finally instructed to take her seat.
She says she later put on a pair of damp black shorts over her pink ones to avoid conflict. Nereidaa adds that after receiving the red notice, she expected to be approached by law enforcement upon landing, but was not. She also says she contacted Frontier.
In another follow-up video, she shows her chats with several Frontier workers. Each apologized for her experience and said it does not meet their standards. They assured her that her concern has been escalated to the appropriate team.
‘Is she drunk? She sounds very drunk?’
As previously stated, many viewers in the comments section of the video on the flight accused Katie of being drunk. Several also questioned why she was making a big deal of the situation when they were already in the air. Even flight attendants chimed in and said what passengers wear is none of their concern.
User Lolo said, “Uhhh that stewardess is drunk. … I watched all the parts & this is absurd.”
“Not her calling for help saying SHE is the one being harassed … be so for real,” user Talia Rose wrote.
User Hola said, “I’m a Flight Attendant, what you wear isn’t my concern.”
Another flight attendant similarly wrote, “As [a] flight attendant that’s the gate agents job.”
@a90sbabygirl Katie from @Frontier Airlines ! #frontier #airport #dresscode ♬ original sound – Lovelyy Nereidaa ???
What is Frontier’s dress code?
The Mary Sue was unable to find a specific section on Frontier’s website addressing passenger attire. However, it was able to find something in the company’s Contract of Carriage.
It states, “Frontier may refuse to provide transportation to any person and may require that a passenger leave an aircraft or be removed from an aircraft for the following reasons, in which case no refund to the original form of payment will be due and Frontier will have no further liability.”
Item 10 of this section notes that Frontier may refuse to transport “Any passenger who is barefoot and over 3 years of age, unless required to be barefoot for medical reasons, or who is not otherwise fully clothed in clothing that is not lewd or obscene, threatening, intimidating, or would be objectionable to reasonable persons.”
Given that no one else seemed to have a problem with her shorts, it would seem that they are not “objectionable to reasonable persons,” and Nereidaa was not in violation of the Contract of Carriage.
She isn’t the only passenger to experience this
One woman says Southwest Airlines refused to let her board her flight because her shorts were too short. Another said Spirit Airlines kicked her and a friend off a flight because they were wearing crop tops.
What’s up with these dress code policies?
In an article addressing what you should wear on a flight, a former flight attendant notes that policies against showing skin aren’t about promoting modesty or purity culture; they’re about safety.
She said that in the event of an emergency, revealing clothing could be dangerous: “Sure, they might look cute on Instagram, but during an evacuation, they’re a recipe for burned thighs and scraped skin. Sliding down that inflatable ramp with your skin exposed – ouch. It’s not glamorous; it’s painful and dangerous.”
In an email to the Mary Sue, Frontier shared the following statement: “We are in contact with the customer and are currently investigating the matter.”
The Mary Sue contacted Nereidaa via TikTok comment and direct message, and Instagram direct message.
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