A woman boarding a flight in her hometown of Denver nearly didn’t get to her destination at Newark-Liberty International on Jan. 13.
All because of a piece of clothing.
Andrea Worldwide was stopped by a male employee at United Airlines, who told her that her top was too low-cut and revealing.
Worldwide recounted the story in a Facebook post and also shared it with CBS Denver.
‘I am a professional woman, who employs hundreds of other young professional women, which is why I have decided to take a stand and speak out about the unacceptable behavior of United Airlines staff,” she wrote on Facebook. ‘’I didn’t want to post this, but given the lack of attention to this issue by United, I am given no other choice.”
Worldwide is a frequent flier on United who travels often to see her boyfriend in Puerto Rico. She showed photos of her outfit to CBS Denver and on her Facebook page, and while she did wear a top with a low-cut neckline, she also wore a cardigan sweater and a scarf.
She asked for a supervisor after initially being detained and was told that her top was “too revealing” by the female supervisor—who eventually relented and allowed Worldwide to board the flight, and even offered a $100 voucher, then $200, for her troubles.
She declined both offers.
Worldwide wrote, “I’m completely humiliated, embarrassed, confused. I feel like all eyes are on me. Two hundred dollars doesn’t even compare to the humiliation that I faced. If another female has to face this, I’d rather get the word out and maybe they’ll choose a different airline.”
The airline told CBS Denver they are trying to work out the problem directly with its passenger.
In a statement, the airline said “At United, our goal is for our customers to feel welcome and have a comfortable journey. We are reaching out to our customer to better understand what happened.”
This is not the first incidence of passenger shaming this month. On Jan. 27, a New Zealand woman and her two daughters were told they were too big for their business class seats on Thai Airways. They were traveling from Bangkok to Auckland, and one of the daughters was actually measured by an airline employee.
