A United passenger flying coach to Orlando boarded the plane this week, went to his seat, and took off his pants. Then he settled in for the journey. Another passenger points out that flight attendants now have another job on their hands: check that passengers are wearing pants.
Wow, get this – my friend is flying to Orlando on @united right now. His seat mate has blue hair and apparently has taken off his pants. I’m told they were off by the time he got to his seat when boarding!! pic.twitter.com/HnxUdHPEVZ
— Matt Michels (@MattMichels10) January 4, 2026
When I was growing up in New York, there were so many people around and everyone pretty much minded their own business. People didn’t have a lot of personal space, so they created a zone of privacy by basically ignoring the world around them.
There’s no real privacy on a plane, especially in coach, so I guess the same approach goes and some people figure that under tight seating conditions they should do whatever makes them the most comfortable.
How else do you explain a Southwest passenger stripping naked, the pantsless Spirit Airlines passenger or the ex-cop who dropped his pants on JetBlue?
There’s an argument for taking your pants off in business class but only when the airline gives you pajamas to wear instead. For overnight flights without pajamas, I bring my own (I usually try to bring pajamas I’d gotten from the same airline on a previous flight, or at least stay in the airline’s joint ventures or alliances).
But here’s a Delta passenger without pants or socks at a bulkhead seat, and a woman taken off of a United Express flight in nothing but her t-shirt.
Delta and United position themselves as premium airlines. Even Spirit isn’t your mom’s basement, and they’re trying to elevate their image away from the belief that all of their passengers were raised by wolves.
Plane surfaces are dirty. The one thing I really had hoped would last coming out of the pandemic was elevated cleanliness, but it really didn’t. You want layers between your body and what’s rubbed all over airplane seats by numerous passengers who sat there before you.
In fairness, if you don’t actually bring the pants with you to travel then that’s less weight on the aircraft, lower fuel burn, and cost-saving to the airline. That ultimately translates into lower fares for all of us. Still, not worth it!
And United’s Contract of Carriage, in Rule 21 (Refusal of Transport), says the airline has the right to refuse transport or remove a passenger when, among other things, the passenger is “barefoot” or “not properly clothed.” It flags clothing that is “lewd, obscene or offensive” but this can be read to include clothing that’s off, as well.
