I recently ran across an article about how “Northwest flight attendants want Delta to offer bigger sizes of signature red dress uniform” (written by Harry R. Weber, AP Airlines Writer, in an Associated Press story datelined Atlanta on Friday July 10, 2009 and subsequently picked up by the Yahoo Finance website).
I decided to offer my own observations on this topic as well.
By way of background, Northwest Airlines (NWA) recently merged with Delta Air Lines (with the combined carrier to be known as “Delta Air Lines”). And as in any other airline merger, the two formerly separate workforces must be merged as well into a single new workforce. Among other things, that means that former NWA staffers would need to be provided with Delta uniforms to take the place of NWA uniforms they formerly wore.
That said, the gist of the Mr. Weber’s story was that:
1) Delta offers a range of outfits in various colors and styles (most in sizes up to Size 28) that flight attendants can wear;
2) One of the available uniforms was a red dress uniform designed a few years prior to the merger by Richard Tyler, but this outfit was available in sizes up to Size 18 only (as it apparently had been designed such that it looked “stylish” in that size range); and
3) The union that represents flight attendants who worked for Northwest Airlines before it was merged into Delta Air Lines has filed a grievance, asking Delta to offer the red dress in sizes up to Size 28.
According to Patricia Reller, who handles grievances for the union:
“I think red is an eye-popping color and it’s not subtle, and to me by not offering it in a size over 18, Delta is saying, ‘We don’t want you wearing that if you are over size 18 … but the job isn’t about being sexy. It’s about safety.”
I wonder?
Is the job really about safety?
Or is it about being sexy?
If you go back several decades, flight attendants (the lion’s share of whom were female) were picked the way that some Asian airlines still seem to pick them today: good looks were a very definite plus. They may not admit it today (given how politically correct the business climate is) but they seem to hire with an eye toward the “sexy”.
Back in those days (several decades ago), it was very common for flight attendants to be in the 18 to 28-year-old age range. Why? Airlines hired them young and grounded them once they hit 28 (i.e. they started looking a bit long in the tooth) by transferring them to the reservations desk or another back office role.
They also had to have good vision (uncorrected) or wear contact lenses. Why? Glasses weren’t considered sexy either.
And at least some airlines held regular weigh-ins for flight attendants. Start getting a bit too “Rubenesque” of figure and the flight attendant would be grounded.
After all, most airline customers in those days were male executives on business trips and (since boys will be boys) they enjoyed being served by young, slim and attractive flight attendants, especially since the “little woman” waiting for him at home likely fell well short on all three scores.
That was a textbook case of good marketing…
“Give the customer
what he wants”
But good marketing makes for bad labor relations in the feminist-dominated world of more recent decades. Older and portlier women didn’t want to be grounded, any more than do older guys who have played in the NFL for many years want to be cut from the team once they can no longer compete against the rookies being drafted each year.
And although NFL players don’t account for 52% of the eligible voters, women do. And airlines had to change their tune: no more grounding women who got old or hefty.
As long as all airlines in the country were forced to change, it became a wash (if all of the airline’s competitors also have older or heftier flight attendants, that airline won’t have to worry about losing customers to competitors with hotter eye-candy on board).
So today’s mantra became “safety”. And if you buy that claim (that a flight attendant is there for safety, not to “look good”), that has the added benefit (at least from a flight attendant’s standpoint) that they’re not there for service either.
“…
ever been on a 14-hour flight and the flight attendants disappeared after the first couple of hours
…”
Ever been on a 14-hour flight and the flight attendants disappeared after the first couple of hours (only to spend the next several hours chatting among themselves)? If you did and if you seem at all miffed that you’ve been ignored for many hours, flight attendants will sometimes trot out that old saw: “our job is to provide safety”.
Not a bad con if you can get away with it. And if you believe the reports on several of the airline passenger online sites, you’ll hear a lot of grumbling by passengers about thin, rude or non-existent service on board long flights.
Which brings me to the crux of the issue here.
How physically agile (needed for emergency plane evacuations and such) would a woman be if Size 18 is too small for her?
Keep in mind that the women likely to give you wood are likely to be wearing single-digit dress sizes. And that “dress size inflation” (by six sizes) has taken place since the original dress sizes were standardized in the 1950s (manufacturers refer to this as “vanity sizing”). So a Size 18 dress today will be the same size as would be a Size 24 dress from forty years ago.
Is a woman who could not fit a Size 18 dress (at today’s more generous size standard) too large to provide maximum safety to passengers in the event of an emergency?
Perhaps so.
And if it really is about “safety” and not about “sexy”, then it makes no difference what dress flight attendants wear (stylish or utilitarian) … or can’t wear. Hell, why not wear a caftan (or a muu-muu) for maximum freedom of movement?
The only reason for wanting the Tyler dresses here is that they apparently look a bit more stylish than the other dress choices Delta offers. And what has that to do with safety?
If you answered
“Nothing whatsoever!!!”
you’d be right
And let’s be politically incorrect for a moment … how sexy will a Size 28 woman look regardless of her choice in dress? You already know the answer to that one, although you might be reluctant to say it out loud in mixed company.
And that’s not even a gender comment … you could say the same thing about very overweight men. If a 300-pound guy walks into a Speedo store and asks the sales clerk for a Speedo swimsuit that will flatter his physique, he’s asking for the impossible.
Even the most talented fashion (or swimsuit) designers can’t work miracles, and wishing otherwise won’t make it so.
And odder still is the comment by Ms. Reller, who is quoted as saying that she “did not know how many pre-merger Northwest flight attendants want to wear the red dress but need a size bigger than 18”.
Does that make sense to you?
After all, why get into a big brouhaha over an issue when you don’t even know if it affects any of the workers whom you represent? In business as in life, it makes good sense to pick your battles wisely.
Here’s what I think is really going on here: NWA’s flight attendants are unionized but Delta’s flight attendants are not unionized, so at some point (sooner rather than later) the combined group will need to vote on whether or not to be unionized.
And with there being twice as many Delta flight attendants as NWA flight attendants, the union can not rely solely on its NWA members to keep it in place … it needs to win over quite a few of the Delta flight attendants as well.
And therefore the “red dress” issue is a way for the union to demonstrate to all of those Delta flight attendants (and to any NWA flight attendants who may be wavering) that the union will go toe-to-toe against airline management to protect the interests of flight attendants.
For that demonstration, they needed an “issue” to fight over. And this was the best they could come up with at this time.
Stay tuned,
-Mack Doppler
