A Delta passenger who says she was threatened with being kicked off a flight because she was not wearing a bra has demanded to meet the airline’s boss, claiming she was “targeted and humiliated” in the boob brouhaha.
Lisa Archbold, 38, said she boarded a flight from Salt Lake City to San Francisco on Jan. 22 while wearing baggy jeans and a loose white T-shirt, sans bra.
She claimed a gate agent temporarily escorted her off the plane and demanded that she cover up – even though her breasts were not visible.
“I was targeted and humiliated,” Archbold said during a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday with her attorney, Gloria Allred, NBC LA reported.
“It felt like a scarlet letter was being attached to me,” the self-employed DJ, who was headed to the world-famous Sundance Film Festival, told reporters.
“I felt it was a spectacle aimed at punishing me for not being a woman in the way she thought I should be a woman as she scolded me outside of the plane,” she said.
Archbold, whose stage name is Djette Kiwi, claimed the agent said her attire was “revealing” and “offensive” and that it violated the airline’s policy.
The New Zealand expat said she was allowed to fly on condition that she put another shirt on top of the one she was wearing.
When she brought the matter to the head flight attendant, she claims the employee told her Delta’s official policy is that “women must cover up.”
Allred said she has written to Delta on behalf of her client demanding a meeting with the airline president to discuss the discriminatory policy, AFP reported.
“Male passengers are not required to cover up their T-shirts with a shirt or a jacket,” she said. “They also do not have to wear a bra to board or remain on a plane and women should not have to wear one either.
“Last I checked, the Taliban are not in charge of Delta,” Allred said, adding that federal rules allow airlines to remove passengers who present a safety or security risk to the plane or its passengers.
“Neither her breasts nor any other woman’s breasts have ever tried to take over a plane,” she said. Breasts are not weapons of war, and it’s not a crime for a woman or girl to have them.”
According to Delta’s rules, the carrier may refuse to transport “when the passenger’s conduct, attire, hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers.”
Allred said there are no plans for a lawsuit and that all Archbold wants is a meeting with Delta’s boss to get assurances that the policies will be updated.
A company rep told AFP: “Earlier this year, Delta representatives contacted this customer with an apology.”
The Post has reached out to Delta for comment.
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