Pants: We wear them to work, to the mall, to the bar and, of course, to our weekly Dolly Parton appreciation meetings. But there’s one place you likely don’t see pants: in the sky, on female flight attendants. That’s because the skirt has been the default uniform choice for flight attendants for, well, basically forever. But that may be changing.
Virgin Atlantic just made a major change to its uniform policy. Not only are women flight attendants no longer required to wear makeup, but they will now be given pants as part of their standard uniform. Up until now, trousers were only available by employee request.
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“Not only do the new guidelines offer an increased level of comfort, they also provide our team with more choice on how they want to express themselves at work,” Mark Anderson, Virgin Atlantic’s executive vice president of customer, said in a statement. “Our world famous red uniform is something all of us at Virgin Atlantic are incredibly proud of. As an airline, we have always stood out from the crowd and done things differently to the rest of the industry. We want our uniform to truly reflect who we are as individuals while maintaining that famous Virgin Atlantic style.”
The change came after employee feedback.
Pants might just be the wave of the airline uniform future. Flight attendants who have to work long flights might prefer the comfort, not to mention the functionality, of pants to skirts. Plus, those flights tend to get cold.
It will be interesting to see if the other airlines follow suit, but it’s clear that the uniform world is undergoing some major shifts, especially in the skies.
