A pilot’s wife has issued a stark warning over the clothes women should never wear at an airport.
The frequent flyer, from Houston, Texas, known as Travel Tips by Laurie on Instagram, advised women to avoid wearing long or billowing dresses to board a flight.
‘Do not wear a dress through airport security for these two reasons,’ Laurie detailed in the caption of her video.
‘One: The pocket of air a flowy dress makes could cause a dense area to show up that the machine cannot see through,’ she added.
‘Two: A flowy dress, in my opinion, should be packed so you do not worry about it brushing against a seat in boarding that has pizza sauce stains or spilled coffee stains… or a seat in the airplane lavatory.’
Laurie advised women to instead pack dresses in their suitcase to wear later – after they reach their destination.
Her video resonated with many of her 260,000 followers as many rushed to heap praise on the content creator in the comments.
‘Great tip. I did that once and TSA did not like it,’ one user wrote.
The frequent flyer, from Houston, Texas, known as Travel Tips by Laurie on Instagram, advised women to avoid wearing long or billowing dresses to board a flight
‘Great tip, I would not wear a dress but never really thought about it!!’ another said.
One person also shared their own harrowing dress experience, revealing: ‘I feel this. I wore a great maxi dress and while it was so comfortable – SO stressful.
‘I worried about it dragging on yucky things and in the bathroom, I stuffed it all into my bra,’ they shared.
‘I would never wear a dress. Agree,’ another comment read.
Someone else wrote, ‘Wow! I did not know this!!,’ while another added, ‘Great advice.’
Though TSA doesn’t have any strict dress code rules, baggy clothing – including loose dresses – may require you to go through extra screening, per Barton Associates.
Security may suspect that your loose clothes are being worn to hide something.
Jeff Price, an airport security coordinator-trainer, explained the behaviors, actions, and physical traits that mean a traveler may have a higher chance of being pulled aside.
‘Do not wear a dress through airport security for these two reasons,’ Laurie detailed in the caption of her video (stock image)
Agents usually look for a ‘cluster’ of red-flagged activities rather than one thing.
According to Price, two of the most common actions are yawning and outfits that don’t align with a destination’s weather patterns.
Frequent yawning is an action TSA agents pay attention to – because of what may cause it to occur.
‘Exaggerated yawning, lots of yawning – that might attract attention. When people are stressed, they tend to want more oxygen,’ Price said.
Travelers who aren’t stressed could also excessively yawn for reasons such as lack of sleep, boredom, or any other medical conditions.
Lack of sleep could also be a reason behind the ‘thousand-yard stare’ or lack of eye contact.
Price noted the stare could make everyone uncomfortable, and is a reason why ‘behavior clusters’ are important for TSOs.
‘One of the things we do train is we’ll send people out to watch [airline travelers] and just observe their behavior and get a baseline of what’s normal in the airport,’ Price said.
‘Then we can start looking for what’s abnormal – and you start looking for clusters of that.’
