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Teens say being pretty led to Southwest mistreatment

They say their good looks led to a flight skirmish. Southwest blames ugly behavior.

By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer
Published February 28, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT Video See the Southwest video and the teens' interview on WTSP-TV Ch. 10 [Handout] Sarah Williams, 18, left, and Nisreen Swedberg, 19, right, were taken by police off a Southwest flight for allegedly being abusive to passengers and crew. [YouTube] In a YouTube video posted late Tuesday, a Southwest spokeswoman responds to the teens' complaints, saying, "Reports from the flight attendants and other passengers support the fact that these women were behaving in a way not appropriate on an aircraft at 30,000 feet."

You can be too drunk to fly, too obnoxious to fly and too smelly to fly. But too pretty to fly?

That's the label stuck on two Oldsmar teens escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight by Los Angeles police on Valentine's Day after a skirmish with flight attendants and a man who they felt was spending too much time in a lavatory.

Nisreen Swedberg, a 19-year-old University of South Florida student, and her best friend, Sarah Williams, 18, insist that comments they made to a television station saying they were singled out because of their looks were taken out of context.

Williams did tell WTSP-TV Ch. 10 last week, "They were discriminating against us because we were young, decent-looking girls." Swedberg added, "I feel I was just discriminated against based on my looks."

Their story went national this week on CNN and Inside Edition. Southwest fired back late Tuesday, saying the pair was verbally abusive and threatening on the flight. "We welcome pretty people on our flights," a spokeswoman said in a video posted on YouTube. "We just ask that you leave your bad behavior at home."

Williams admits to trading profanities with the man from the lavatory. But the teens say two middle-aged flight attendants treated them rudely throughout the flight, culminating with one of them announcing, "It ain't their fault. It's their momma's fault for raising them like this."

Police released the pair after taking statements from everyone involved. Swedberg and Williams had to buy new tickets home to Tampa after Southwest canceled their return trips. They'll get refunds for that flight, said Marilee McInnis, a Southwest spokeswoman.

"We want to know why," Swedberg said Wednesday. "It could have possibly been our appearance, possibly because we're young and we're women."

"They've done it before to a young, attractive girl," said Williams, referring to Kayla Ebbert, a Hooters waitress and college student from San Diego who boarded a Southwest jet last July in a denim miniskirt and summer sweater over a tank top.

She was allowed to fly only after altering her outfit, deemed too revealing by the flight crew. The incident attracted national publicity - and criticism that Southwest was acting as fashion police. Chief executive Gary Kelly eventually apologized. That doesn't look likely this time.

On, Feb. 14, Swedberg and Williams walked onto Southwest Flight 3600 from Tampa International Airport to Los Angeles and took seats in the back. The teens say there was friction early on.

They were lying down across rows of seats when a flight attendant grabbed Williams' leg and told her to get up so other passengers could sit, she said. Swedberg asked for water and was instructed to wait until attendants started serving everyone.

Williams needed to use a rear lavatory occupied by a middle-age man for at least 15 minutes. She knocked on the door; Southwest says she "banged" on it. When the passenger emerged and asked who had knocked, Williams says, a flight attendant pointed her out.

He uttered an obscenity at her and she returned one. The flight attendant questioned the teens about the altercation but not the other customer, they said. That was the end of it until four police officers came on board in Los Angeles and took them off the plane, the teens said.

"I think the flight attendants wanted to play God," said Williams.

Southwest tells a different story. Both teens were disorderly, verbally abusing the passenger and flight attendants, McInnis said. "Reports from the flight attendants and other passengers support the fact that these women were behaving in a way not appropriate on an aircraft at 30,000 feet," she said.

Swedberg flew home Feb. 18, buying a $419 walk-up ticket on Delta Air Lines. The next morning, she told the tale on the MJ Morning Show on WFLZ-FM 93.3 and that led to the TV interview.

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.

Past incidents

LAST SUMMER: Southwest Airlines created a public uproar, then issued a public apology after crew members told passenger Kayla Ebbert, a Hooters waitress and college student, that her miniskirt and tank top weren't appropriate attire. The resulting message to employees from Southwest president Colleen Barrett: We're not the fashion police.

OCTOBER: Joe Winiecki of Largo was sitting in the last row of a Southwest jet when an airline supervisor instructed him to change his sexually suggestive T-shirt, turn it inside-out or get off the plane. Winiecki argued and objected to changing in front of other passengers. The airline later acknowledged it "does not have a dress code" and would apologize.

[Last modified February 27, 2008, 23:17:06]