A row has erupted within Delta’s flight attendant ranks about the merged airline’s new uniforms — not about the designs or other regulations — about which flight attendants get to wear hot red uniforms and which must wear a dreary, darkish blue.
Delta has decided not to provide “bigger” flight attendants their red uniforms. Heavier flight attendants must wear duller colors.
Delta Airlines will not provide the eye-catching and sexy red uniforms to women who are over the size of 18 and instead these women are supposed to wear the somewhat duller dark blue uniform.
The Northwest Airlines Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), who are being merged into the Delta Air Lines’ ranks, said that this is a clear case of discrimination and obviously they are trying to distract attention from the larger air hostesses.
Perhaps, with the cost-cutting mania sweeping the airlines these days, Delta determined that a bolt of the red fabric was more expensive than the blue and made their decision on strictly economic grounds.
In any case, the AFA is in a huff since all flight attendants are not being treated uniformly. Every flight attendant, according to the union, should be given the same uniform choices.
Perhaps, much of the hullabaloo is because elections are coming up about whether Delta will have a flight attendant union or not after the final phases of the merger take place. Currently, Delta has no union and Northwest has one of the stronger union cultures. The political wrangling within flight attendant ranks in the newly-merged airlines is intense.
Time will tell whether Delta’s non-union culture or the Northwest union approach will prevail. In the meantime, as the new uniforms roll out, Delta flight attendants dressed in red can be considered slim and those in frumpy blue are not … at least according to their company.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
