Airline Adds Sneakers To Uniform, About Time We Prioritise Comfort Over Glamour

Comfort or glamour? The age-old question has been interlinked with women’s fashion for years. After women entered the workforce, the debate over choosing comfort or glamour became linked with professionalism in a work setting. Female athletes are expected to don comfortable clothing along with sneakers and women working in offices are expected to wear heels or flats. Various industries have various norms when it comes to fashion in a professional setting. The simple act of an airline adding sneakers to crew uniforms sparked a conversation about comfort and professionalism.

In airlines, crew uniforms often prioritise glamour over comfort. However, several airlines have changed the norm and decided to prioritise comfort over glamour with the addition of sneakers in crew uniforms.

Akasa Air, a new Indian airline unveiled the crew uniform and was praised for having comfortable clothing and sneakers. The airline tweeted their crew uniform and said in the caption that the uniforms are “designed to keep our organisation’s core value of putting the comfort of our employees and the environment first”.

In a further tweet, they mentioned that the crew uniforms are made using recycled polyester fabric made from bottle plastics salvaged from the ocean.

The crew uniform consisted of trousers, jackets and sneakers. The sneakers in particular caught the eye of social media users and were heavily praised, alongside the airline’s initiative to prioritise comfort.

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Akasa Air Introduces Sneakers In Crew Uniforms

Skirts, sarees and heels have been replaced by sneakers and trousers as more and more airlines begin prioritising comfort over glamour in their uniforms. Airline cabin crews often have to stay on their feet and walk the length of the cabin as they serve food and answer the questions of the passengers. While travelling thousands of metres above sea level, maintaining balance and comfort greatly outweighs the need for glamour, especially in the case of turbulence. Sneakers in crew uniforms allow the attendants to maintain their comfort without sacrificing their professionalism.

Due to this, social media users focused on Akasa Air’s decision to have the crew wear sneakers rather than heels.

They are not the first airline to make changes to the norm of airline uniforms. In 2014, the airline SpiceJet introduced weekend uniforms for the crew. The crew could wear jeans and the female staff wore kurtas while the male staff wore polo shirts.

Jet Airways CEO Sanjiv Kapoor praised the uniform and said the concept reminded him of the “casual jeans and kurtis weekend uniform we had introduced in SpiceJet in 2014”.

In 2021, the Ukrainian airline SkyUp also introduced sneakers in crew uniforms and replaced the skirt with pants and added Nike sneakers to the uniform. SkyUp Airlines in a release said that the change took place to reflect how time and women's fashion have changed over the years.

In 2019, Virgin Atlantic decided that makeup was no longer a requisite for flight attendants. Long with that pants as part of the uniform were also introduced in place of skirts.

Comfort And Professionalism Are Not Mutually Exclusive

The addition of sneakers in crew uniforms positively affects the female staff members of an airline and allows them to be comfortable while maintaining professionalism in the workplace. One social media user praised the decision to incorporate sneakers into the crew uniform and said "No painful high heels for women" and described it as a welcome change.

In 2016, a petition was started by the London-based Nicola Thorp after she was sent home from her temporary job for not wearing high heels. She began an online petition to bring attention to the expectation that working women wear uncomfortable footwear throughout the workday.

The work dress code stated that women must wear footwear with a heel that was 2 inches to 4 inches. The United Kingdom members of parliament said that the inquiry into the work dress code exposed "widespread discrimination" against women.

The government said that no employer should discriminate on the grounds of gender and that work dress codes need to be "reasonable".

Due to societal expectations and work dress code rules, female staff members are forced into wearing heels and uncomfortable footwear for the sake of professionalism. Such rules do not consider the needs or comfort of an employee and focus on appearances instead.

Why are heels considered so integral to appearances and professionalism that they have been prioritised over the comfort of female employees?

Views expressed are the author’s own.