Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wants airline passengers to improve their manners and their attire. His campaign is called “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You.” Tampa airport agrees. They want a ban on passengers wearing pajamas.
— Tampa International Airport ✈️ (@FlyTPA) February 26, 2026
People aren’t sure if this is real. Some folks don’t like a government entity trolling the way a person or company might (“It’s funny when Wendy’s has a troll account. Less funny when a taxpayer funded agency does it” – though the airport is broadly airline and passenger-funded, but it does receive taxpayer grants). .
Delta flies to Amsterdam from Tampa. British Airways flies to London Gatwick and Virgin Atlantic has London Heathrow.. Lufthansa’s DIscover flies to Frankfurt and Edelweiss serves Zurich. Presumably putting on pajamas once on the aircraft would be acceptable.
I bring a pair of airline pajamas (the same airline when possible, but at least the same airline group or a joint venture partner when absolutely necessary) and I’ll change into the when still on the ground at the start of an overnight transoceanic flight.
In terms of actually imposing restrictions on dress, what’s important to understand is:
- Tampa airport is operated by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, an independent special district of the State of Florida. Dress codes here are state action.
- Airport terminals operated by public authorities have been treated by the Supreme Court as non-public forums (see discussion of this in the context of restricting distribution of leaflets and solicitation in International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672 (1992).)
Restrictions have to be reasonable in the context of the purpose of the forum, and they must be viewpoint neutral. And they can’t be sweeping overbroad speech bans like LAX’s ban on all ‘First Amendment activities’ struck down in Board of Airport Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569 (1987).
An airport can have rules on expression, including clothing, that are tied to safety and operations, content-neutral, clear and applied evenly. There’s likely no problem with a rule against nudity in the airport, though this is also usually going to be redundant with state law so not even needed. There can also be requirements to wear shoes! That’s a safety and sanitation issue.
But anything that discriminates against a particular viewpoint is usually not going to pass scrutiny. And content-based “civility” rules are going to be tough in a public airport, though an airline can do it in their space within the airport. An airport can’t ban offensive language t-shirts, but an airline can (Cohen v. California is the classic case on government clothing restrictions dealing with a specific viewpoint.)
Airports can offer vague rules. Those lean into discretion, and lead to selective enforcement. That ends up as viewpoint discrimination. Ban pajamas has to answer what even counts as pajamas. You don’ thave to get to viewpoint here to have a problem with vagueness. What about onesies or hospital scrubs? What about if young kids are wearing their pajamas onto a long haul flight, or before a 5 a.m. departure? We quickly get into discretionary enforcement which is a problem.
In Florida you’ve also got their Religious Freedom Restoration Act which bans government entities from burdening a person’s religious exercise, including attire, without a compelling state interest and demonstration that doing so is the least restrictive means of accomplishing that objective. That makes it tough for airports to ban head coverings, for instance.
Airlines, restaurants bars and other private businesses operating in an airport can have their own rules like “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Dice.” And in fact, airlines put this into their contracts of carriage.
- American Airlines: passengers must “dress appropriately; bare feet or offensive clothing aren’t allowed.”
- Delta: may refuse transport when a passenger’s “conduct, attire, hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers.”
- United: can refuse passengers who are “barefoot, not properly clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive.”
- Southwest bans “offensive behavior,” including wearing clothes that are “lewd, obscene, or patently offensive.”
Tampa’s airport isn’t actually going to ban wearing pajamas. And I think there are times where pajamas are fine and certainly far better than what many people wear!
- Before a long haul flight? Probably change into them in the lavatory not the lounge. And change out of them prior to landing.
- On a pre-teen? Probably fine.
- Maybe make them nice pajamas if you must, you’ll still be more appropriately dressed than plenty of other passengers.
@BillyCorben because its Miami pic.twitter.com/ukarL7ifSv
— Tommy in Hialeah (@Dolphinfan201) January 15, 2020
Tampa isn’t really going to police pajamas—but this viral stunt perfectly captures the absurdity of trying to regulate passenger attire, and probably wouldn’t even withstand judicial scrutiny if they tried.
This is obviously a joke, their social media game is great. When someone asked who would determine whether or not something is pajamas they said the giant flamingo mascot would be the decider.
Pajamas are not the worst of it, by far. Morbidly obese women in skimpy tank tops and essentially underwear and to be fair almost always older morbidly obese men trying to wear a muscle tank top. And there ain’t no muscle to be had or seen.
Not sure if an airport could regulate a dress code. Once Spirit and Frontier leave the skies I suspect we won’t see as much of it.
Yes, TIA has a great and humorous PR department. That said, wearing of pajamas in such a public place suggests to me just how much respect the wearer must have for themselves and those around them. Be interesting to survey the pajama-wearers-per-airline ratio. Maybe bright yellow pajamas would be a clue?
Delta’s policy is the best. I wish that was worldwide.
I have a strong dislike of the excessive use of periods in sentences. Once that happens, the beginning of the message and the rest of the message have no meaning or importance to me. It is just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
TPA is actually a decent airport. Really like their train system between the main terminal and rental car center. Sure, it can get crowded at times (and the SkyClub could be larger), but at least they have a massive flamingo to look at.