Tampa International Airport said on social media Thursday that it wanted to ban people from wearing pajamas at the facility. No, it wasn’t being serious.
A post on the airport’s official X account said that after successfully going 鈥淐rocs-free,鈥� Tampa International had 鈥渟een enough鈥� of pajamas.
鈥淭he madness stops today. The movement starts now,鈥� reads the post, which had been viewed 5.7 million times by mid-afternoon Eastern time and generated a debate about airport attire in the comments.
Beau Zimmer, an airport spokesperson, told The Associated Press the post was part of the airport鈥檚 longstanding social media persona 鈥� a tongue-in-cheek voice it has cultivated since its early days on Twitter, before the platform rebranded as X. The account has attracted a loyal global following, he said.
鈥淥ur regular social media followers just eat this stuff up,” Zimmer said. “But obviously this is all in fun, and we encourage our travelers to be comfortable.鈥�
U.S. Transportation Secretary reacted to the post with a GIF of actor John Krasinski from the TV show 鈥淭he Office鈥� looking into the camera and saying, 鈥淵es!鈥�
Duffy has been encouraging passengers to while flying, part of a civility campaign he launched last November 鈥� called 鈥渢he Golden Age of Travel Starts with You.” The said the campaign was 鈥渋ntended to jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel.鈥�
The airport released a statement Thursday clarifying its post was intended as a joke.
鈥淭oday鈥檚 post about 鈥榖anning鈥� pajamas was another playful nod to day-of-travel fashion debates,” it said. “We encourage our passengers to travel comfortably and appreciate our loyal followers who enjoy the online humor.鈥�
Zimmer said the airport’s online personality has been around for at least a decade. In the earlier days of what was then Twitter, a young intern started posting light-hearted jokes, like poking fun at rival sports teams and fans, 鈥渁nd it really took off.鈥�
Earlier this month, the day after the Tampa Bay Lightning to beat the Boston Bruins 6-5 in an NHL Stadium Series game in Tampa, the airport shared on X: 鈥淥h, and safe flight home to all the Bruins fans today :)鈥�
Last month, alluding to an ongoing joke about passengers mixing up the airport’s code of TPA with TIA, an airport in Albania, the Tampa airport shared a New Year’s resolution 鈥渢o stress out less.鈥�
鈥淯nfortunately,” the post continued, “some of y’all’s resolutions is to continue calling us TIA so we will not be meeting our goal.鈥�
One X user responded that Tampa airport should just change its code to 鈥淕OAT so people don’t get confused,鈥� referring to the acronym for 鈥済reatest of all time.鈥�
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