Underwear Traveler Spotted at Other Airports

MSNBC: It seems that the mystery man recently allowed to fly on a US Airways flight wearing little but women’s underwear has been spotted at numerous airports around the country in a variety of similarly skimpy outfits.

Jessica Villardi took this photo of what appears to be the same man, this time in pink underwear, on May 20 at Los Angeles International Airport. “I wouldn't let the kids in my party look his way,” she said.

Another reader, who asked to remain anonymous, spotted a similar-looking fellow at the Baltimore airport on Oct. 29, 2010, while he was waiting to board an AirTran flight. “I thought at the time that it may just be a Halloween weekend gag. Guess I was wrong,” the reader said.

And Sean Stecker spotted our man in Phoenix just before Christmas. “No way I was missing this, so I yelled to him on my way up the escalator and he waved to us.”

The man's idenity remains unknown.

The San Francisco Chronicle first published a photo of the "underwear traveler" on Tuesday. The picture was provided by Jill Tarlow, who told the newspaper that she flew with the man on the same June 9 USAirways flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Phoenix. Tarlow said passengers had complained to airline workers before the flight, but that their complaints were ignored.

USAirways spokeswoman Valerie Wunder told msnbc.com: "As long as you’re covered you can fly. In the picture, that man is covered. A little unorthodox, but covered."

The story surfaced after a college student was removed from a USAirways flight and arrested at San Francisco International Airport on June 16 for not pulling up his saggy pants

Wunder told msnbc.com that University of New Mexico football player Deshon Marman's arrest was "not a matter of baggy pants. It was a matter of him not complying with crew instructions.”

Kate Hanni, director of FlyersRights.org, said that airlines need to come up with specific standards in their contract of carriage as to what a passenger can and cannot wear. "It would appear that leaving these decisions up to well meaning, but diverse airline employees and flight attendants is a recipe for mass confusion, and is frankly confusing and unfair," she said.