The largest airline in Switzerland will allow flight attendants to have piercings and tattoos
Swiss, which is a subsidiary of Lufthansa, is changing the rules for flight personnel in favor of employees.
In the future, flight attendants will be allowed to have visible facial piercings, and lipstick will no longer be mandatory for women. It will also be possible to wear opaque tights and use medical tights, such as those against thrombosis. The requirement for shaved legs is also canceled.
Flight attendants of both sexes are allowed to wear makeup and nail polish. Tattoos and piercings are allowed and may be visible. The exception is that the face and arms should not have tattoos.
Female crew members will also be allowed to wear ties and lace-up shoes under their skirts.
According to luzernerzeitung.ch, the impetus for the innovations was, among other things, an article in a Swiss magazine titled “Geisha of the Skies – Uniforms and Sexism,” which questioned the requirements and rules for airline crews.
Airline requirements are changing
Swiss is not the only airline that relaxes the rules of style for its crew. A few years ago, airBaltic allowed employees to get tattoos or individual haircuts. Virgin Atlantic has relaxed the rules to the point of abolishing the flight attendants’ uniforms by gender – men are also allowed to wear skirts.
Lufthansa’s Belgian subsidiary recently partially allowed visible tattoos. Makeup and nail polish are no longer mandatory. But for the parent company of the Lufthansa Group, no changes are planned in the instructions, so employees are expected to have a “professional appearance,” which includes, among other things, “appropriate makeup” for women and a “well-groomed beard” for men.
