Flight attendants

Mixed reviews for new uniforms on United

Flight attendants,
United_uniforms in the terminal

Courtesy United Airlines

Virgin America employees got swanky Banana Republic-designed uniforms last year. This past spring, Virgin Atlantic, All Nippon Airways and Qantas Airways unveiled fresh, designer-made duds for their teams as well.

Now flight attendants, customer service agents and many of the more than 64,000 United Airlines employees worldwide have shed their old work outfits for a new wardrobe that “brings all of our employees together in a cohesive look and lets our customers know that we’re all on the same team,” said United spokesperson Charles Hobart.

United’s new flight attendant uniforms, for example, are built around a core wardrobe of black trousers, skirts, sweaters, vests and blazers with two rows of silver braid on the sleeves. There are also two styles of dresses, including a blue dress with a black stripe detail.

To come up with what United describes as its “more modern, sophisticated wardrobe,” the airline asked its employees to give on-line feedback, serve on uniform review teams, vote for their favorite designs and wear-test a variety of garments “They told us that comfort, functionality and durability were elements of a uniform that were important to them, as well as something that looked good,” said Hobart.

“If United really did design these uniforms based on employee input for comfort and durability, I applaud them,” said Tiffany Hawk, a former flight attendant and author of “Love Me Anyway”, a novel about life at United Airlines. “Satisfying your employees should be far more important than satisfying fashion critics. Flight attendants work five or six legs a day, 20 days a month, so easy maintenance and durability is key.”

Fashion-wise, though, reaction to the new uniforms is decidedly ‘meh.’

“The overall look screams of function and comfort and not style. They seemed to have missed an opportunity to have made a more fashionable and current statement,” said Karen Giberson, president of New York-based Accessories Council.

“The new uniform looks depressingly like the old uniform and is not flattering at all. I’m deeply disappointed” said Cliff Muskiet, a KLM purser and curator of Uniformfreak.com, an on-line museum of flight-attendant uniforms. “After the merger with Continental, United had the chance to come up with a great new uniform, but they didn’t.”

(My story about new uniforms for United Airlines employees first appeared on NBC News.com Travel)

How real ‘Mad Men’ invented the sex-kitten stewardess

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The 6th season of AMC’s Mad Men kicks off Sunday, April 7 with a two hour episode that will likely transport viewers back to the clothes, cocktails, cigarettes and cultural shifts that were taking place in the late 1960s.

AIR STRIP

The series has occasionally portrayed the glamor and excitement of air travel and the seemingly wild and carefree lives led by that era’s female flight attendants. But, according to a new book about the history of airline stewardesses, it was men – and some women – at Mad Men-like advertising agencies that invented the image of the sexy stewardess in the first place.

In The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon journalist and historian Victoria Vantoch writes that in the mid-1960s, advertising firms trying to “sex up” the stuffy reputation of early airlines began by replacing ads portraying female flight attendants as helpful, girl next door types with images of “beguiling new stewardesses” promising coffee, tea and more.

Stewardess vintage

Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Vantoch about what she learned from poring over thousands of airline print ads, interviewing stewardesses and advertising executives and reading through internal agency papers related to early airline advertising campaigns.

Before Mad Men advertising agencies got involved with the airline industry, how were stewardesses portrayed and promoted?

“In the 1940s and 1950s, the stewardess was popularly imagined as a paragon of virginity, wholesomeness and domesticity. Airlines cultivated the airline stewardess image carefully. She was the consummate homemaker: an expert at pampering men, serving casserole and looking pretty.”

How did the ‘in-flight’ image of stewardesses in the 1950s compare to their real life experiences?

“There was a huge gulf between gender ideals and real women’s lives in mid-century America. In a way, the stewardess icon resolved that deep chasm between real life working women and the fantasy of the full-time happy housewife. Stewardesses appeared to be these quintessential 1950s housewives, yet there were simultaneously ambitious, independent career women who traveled far from home.”

What happened to that wholesomeness when Mad Men advertising firms got involved in the 1960s?

“During the 1960s, advertising agencies were trying to make airlines seem more hip and cool, so they would appeal to the emerging youth market. These ad agency executives knew that the youth counterculture and the sexual revolution were spreading across American culture and they knew it was becoming important to resonate with these new cultural mores.”

And how did they go about transforming the stewardess image from wholesome, capable and virginal into something else?

“To appeal to the nation’s new 1960s mores, these ad agencies cultivated a hipper, sexy stewardess dressed in trendy mini-dresses and uniforms that were also more revealing. The first airline to really create the sexy stewardess was Braniff. Advertising pioneer Mary Wells took over the Braniff airlines advertising and rolled out a campaign called the “Air Strip,” featuring stewardesses stripping off layers of their uniforms.”

That certainly would draw attention to the in-flight safety announcement. What did other airlines do?

“Other airlines followed suit: airline ads began featuring stewardesses with teased hair, lying down on airplane seats and looking seductively at the viewer. TWA unveiled paper dress uniforms for their stewardesses, which ripped easily in flight. Pan Am kept hemlines lowest longest, but eventually they raised stewardess uniform hemlines as well.”

It seems like all that sex-kitten stuff would appeal to men. But weren’t women flying as passengers during this time as well?

“It wasn’t simply about selling air travel to businessmen; it was about selling air travel to the middle-class, including women, who wanted to be young, hip, and stylish.”

And how did the sex-kitten image of flight attendants compare to their real-life experiences?

“Real stewardesses did not passively accept this new image and had been expressing, protesting, and legally fighting sex discrimination in the workplace long before the 1970s women’s movement gave a language and context for their complaints. In fact, stewardesses won some of the first legal victories for women in the workforce and beat the tobacco industry with the first ban against smoking in the workplace.”

(Photos courtesy Victoria Vantoch)

My interview with Victoria Vantoch – “How real life ‘Mad Men’ invented the sex-kitten stewardess” first appeared on NBCNews.com Travel

Souvenir Sunday: Finnair flight attendants share their stories

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Has anything unusual or humorous happened to Finnair flight attendants?

Looks like we’ll have to get a copy of Airborne: Tales From A Thousand And One Flights, to find out.

The book is billed as “a collection of true stories written by customer service professionals of the sky” and appears to be filled with stories like this:

CRUISE – MEAL SERVICE

A passenger was upset on a leisure flight as he had asked for a window seat, but had been given one on the aisle instead. The flight was full, and nobody in his immediate vicinity was willing to change seats. I wondered what I could do to cheer him up, and decided to make him a window. I took a trash frame and taped “curtains” from kitchen roll on it. I went up to the man and said, “I’m really sorry that our service chain has let you down today. However, to make up for your loss, I do have this portable window for you. Would you like me to hold it in place, while you eat your preordered vegetarian meal?” The passenger burst out laughing, and stayed in a good mood for the rest of the flight.

Tee-hee. There are more wild and wacky stories like that in the book, which is available in English or Finnish. Proceeds of the book will be donated to the Finnish Central Association for Mental Health, which works for the prevention of mental health issues among children and adolescents.

Scarf & tie-swapping flight attendants making friends

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A small gesture is getting big raves from flight attendants who now work for the company created by the merger of United and Continental Airlines but who continue to fly separately—in their traditional United or Continental uniforms—while final union and contract issues are  were being worked out.

Flight attendants who came from the old Continental Airlines recently ratified a new contract, which means attendants can now negotiate a joint contract to cover the combined group of about 24,000 flight attendants – including about 9,000 U.S. flight attendants who came from Continental.

“We have to two diverse cultures with completely different work rules, wants and needs,” said Sara Keagle, a Continental flight attendant who blogs as the Flying Pinto.

The two teams will eventually be blended and issued new matching uniforms. But as a symbol of friendship and bridge-building, flight attendants from each airline have been swapping their regulation neckwear for the scarves and ties worn by the other team.

The informal program was started by Kathe Hull, a United flight attendant who was reading through messages on a flight attendant Facebook page on June 29th. “It’s sort of been like the first day of school; we’ve all been eyeing each other, wondering if we were going to be friends. I was checking in on the page and I thought that instead of just posting a comment here and there I would make a gesture to my peers at my sister airline,” Hull said.

She asked if a Continental flight attendant would be willing to trade scarves. “I wanted it to foster a friendship beyond Facebook,” said Hull, who has been a flight attendant for United since Valentine’s Day 1991.

Hull kicked off the program by putting two of her United scarves in a small plastic bag with her name, base city and a note to a potential “scarf-sister” from Continental. She left the bag in a swap box she set up in the Newark domicile, one of the briefing rooms where flight attendants check-in before their flights.

Courtesy “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarves and Ties”

 “I have no idea who got my scarves,” said Hull. But she does know that the idea has spread like wildfire.

With the help of an enthusiastic “scarf squad,” swap boxes with plastic bags of scarves, ties and some wings have been set up in domiciles all over the United States. And through a new Facebook page set up for what has been now been dubbed “The Sisterhood and Brotherhood of the Traveling Scarves and Ties,” Hull has learned that swap boxes have been set up at the airline’s bases in Guam, Narita, Japan and Frankfurt, Germany.

“It’s like pen pals meet The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” said Hull, referring to the popular young adult books and movies about a group of friends who must be apart but stay in touch by sharing a magical pair of blue jeans.

“It’s an uncertain time. Bases are opening and closing. People are shifting around,” said Hull. “This is a good way to begin feeling like a family.”

The uniforms worn by both United and Continental flight attendants are navy blue, but passengers who look closely should be able to spot the swappers, who have cleared the non-regulation accessories with United management.

Courtesy “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarves and Ties”

“Hull’s idea is about camaraderie and the bonding as one team,” said Sam Risoli, United Airlines senior vice president of inflight services. “It a terrific idea that’s simple, personal and very genuine. A perfect example of being positive and doing the right things.”

(My story “United, Continental flight attendants swap scarves, ties for friendship,” first appeared on NBCNEWS.com.