Wearing a uniform outside of conducting official business is always a touchy subject. An airline should have a uniform policy for its flight crews that provides clear guidelines on when it is appropriate to wear your uniform and when it is NOT. Of course, creating something as simple as a uniform policy seems to be asking a lot from some airlines and enforcing it is a whole other ball game.

Of course, we should take extreme pride in wearing our uniforms. Hell, you went through so much crap to earn the right to wear one! The uniform is certainly a status symbol to most of the lay public. However, when and where you wear your uniform outside of work norms can lead to odd situations and sometimes unexpected problems (excluding strip clubs, of course).

If the decision on when to wear your uniform is left up to each individual, that opens up a huge can of worms! Where you and I may wear our uniforms off-duty can be like night and day. Think that over for a minute. I bet you can imagine a ton of places folks would wear their uniforms that just doesn’t make sense and can cause more overall harm to pilot’s images and the profession. Anytime you trust everyone to use common sense in making a judgment call on issues of this nature, grab your ankles and hang on brother! My shirt comes off at the very minimum when outside of work norms (I know, that was a loaded line ) but that’s just me.

Ok. Time to Duck and Cover now for the responses.