Declaring ‘the Madness Stops Today,’ Tampa International Calls ‘To Ban Pajamas’ at the Airport

Florida’s Tampa International Airport, or TPA, is declaring a “crisis” over the number of travelers boarding flights in pajamas. Saying that the “madness stops today,” it’s advancing the spirit of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s civility campaign: “The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You.”Tampa International, which serves over 23 million passengers a year, writes on X that it has “seen” and “had enough. It’s time to ban” sleepwear at the hub. They called travelers dressed for bed a “crisis” like the one that inspired the airport’s “ban” on that much-maligned, plastic footwear: Crocs.In July on Facebook, Tampa International advised that TSA would now “let” passengers keep their shoes on during screening. “Unless,” the airport added as a footnote, “you’re wearing Crocs. You should take those off and throw them away.”The plastic, hole-riddled Crocs emerged as a symbol of societal devolution in the 2006 cult classic, “Idiocracy.” The co-writer and director of the film, Mike Judge, carried society’s worst trends to absurd conclusions, depicting a future where, “as the years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate.”On “The Joe Rogan Experience” in June, Mr. Judge told the host that a costume designer, Allison Leach, told him about “these horrible plastic shoes” sold by a startup. She suggested having the cast of “Idiocracy” wear Crocs to save money and render the characters absurd.“What if,” Mr. Judge recalled asking, Crocs became popular “by the time the movie comes out?” They were “never going to become popular,” Ms. Leach said. “No one would ever wear” them. But by 2006, the shoes were trendy and “comfort culture” was in full swing.“Idiocracy” helped doom the Crocs fad as wearers started being mocked. In another parallel to the concerns out of Tampa, the people of Mr. Judge’s dumbed-down America dressed in loungewear and pajamas, too. Not a suit, tie, or creased pair of slacks were in sight.Tampa International is hoping to use this kind of peer pressure to improve its dress code again. As “the world’s first Crocs-free airport,” they wrote in Thursday’s tweet, they’re issuing a travel warning for passengers “wearing pajamas. At. The. Airport. In the middle of the day.”The statement recalled the Golden Age campaign that Mr. Duffy launched in November. According to a statement from the Department of Transportation, it’s “intended to jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel.”Mr. Duffy suggested passengers ask themselves “Are you dressing with respect?” Last month, the secretary told NewsNation that he “can’t mandate you dress up, but don’t wear pajamas and slippers to the airport.” He argued that if passengers “dress a little better,” they’ll “behave a little better.”But relaxed standards of dress are hard to reverse. Women forced to walk to work during 1980’s New York City transit strike switched to sneakers from high heels and never went back. What began as Casual Friday seeped into five-day weeks, and work-from-home habits during the pandemic prioritized comfort over professionalism.InStyle described Tampa International’s move as a “divisive new dress code.” They noted that “many travelers … turn to sleepwear to make their flights as comfortable as possible,” before adding that “it seems like it’s more of a suggestion than an absolute ban.”Tampa International’s tweet joked that “this decision could be disruptive to someone in your life.” However, they encouraged travelers to have the “difficult conversation with” others. “You can do this,” they wrote. “We (and Phoebe),” the famed Flamingo statue in the Central Terminal, “believe in you.”The post is getting a million views per hour as of this writing. Positive responses were the rule. Many users sharing photos of passengers in skirts, ties, hats, and suits on luxurious flights in the mid-20th Century. Others responded that had those levels of comfort been maintained, so would the standard of dress.Tampa International is asking passengers to “say no to pajamas at TPA” to restore lines between public and private attire. From such small pushes, big changes can result in a society — in this case, ensuring that “Idiocracy” is just a satire, and not a vision from America’s dumbed-down, dressed-down destination.

Declaring ‘the Madness Stops Today,’ Tampa International Calls ‘To Ban Pajamas’ at the Airport

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