As I was getting on to the airliner yesterday I noticed a guy wearing a pilot's uniform sitting in the next seat over: short sleeve light blue shirt with epaulets, pilot wings, name tag, dark slacks, and tie. I thought this was kinda weird, since airline employees fly in street clothes when not on duty, and a pilot wouldn't be back in economy. Anyway, I went about my business and was deep in the headphones when I noticed the flight attendants questioning him.

It turns out he was a customer who was just wearing the uniform. The flight attendants were not pleased. He didn't have a good explanation for why he was wearing the outfit--he gave some cock-and-bull story about his wife, the airline employee, that didn't track.

The flight attendants read him the riot act, had him remove the shirt, and took his ID and tickets  to run a background check.

The check came back clean, and they returned his ID. From what I could gather he's going to be placed on a watch list and will receive a free rectal exam every time he flies from now on.  The police didn't question him on exit; I followed him out of the plane and watched him leave.

Near as I can figure he was either trying to scam an upgrade (he was already on an exit row, maybe hoping for a first class upgrade) or was just a weird guy that had a uniform fetish. If he was a con man he wasn't a very good one. He wasn't glib under questioning at all. He had what I thought was a foreign accent, maybe German, but had a US passport.

The cabin crew handled it well. The head gal wasn't taking any guff and took control of the situation.  They had a couple of them lined up while questioning him if he became violent.

I was mildly surprised he made it through security at the airport dressed like that, unless he did some sort of shirt change once through the checkpoints.

Good for the flight attendents. Planes are no place to fool around playing dressup.

Sounds like a freak but you can never tell these days.  Could have been a front man doing some probing.

Reason #7,593 that I'll never set foot on another Boeing or Airbus as long as I live.

Thank god he wasn't wearing a T-shirt with a naked lady on it.  Who knows what might have happened then!

Quoted: Thank god he wasn't wearing a T-shirt with a naked lady on it.  Who knows what might have happened then!

That guy (with the t-shirt) was a selfish inconsiderate asshat. No skin off his nose to take his fellow passengers into account, but noooooo, he had to be Mr. First-amendment Hardass. Once he is off the plane, and others are free to walk away from his displays of stupidity, then he can wear whatever he wants.

I dated a flt attendent and she tod me some amazing stories about rude, selfish passengers. Again, if someone is doing something odd on a flight, then they deserve to get questioned.

Someone saw "Catch me if you can" a few too many times.

Quoted: Quoted: Thank god he wasn't wearing a T-shirt with a naked lady on it.  Who knows what might have happened then! That guy (with the t-shirt) was a selfish inconsiderate asshat. No skin off his nose to take his fellow passengers into account, but noooooo, he had to be Mr. First-amendment Hardass. Once he is off the plane, and others are free to walk away from his displays of stupidity, then he can wear whatever he wants. I dated a flt attendent and she tod me some amazing stories about rude, selfish passengers. Again, if someone is doing something odd on a flight, then they deserve to get questioned.

I know, I was just fishing for a icon.  I was 100% against the passenger in that particular case.