Except, our business model travels mostly Feb-Oct....90% of the time we aren't wearing our jacket

Ha! Same story here.

Well, that may be true, then they use those miles to fly their families over the holidays.

Lol. I sweat easily. It’s the number one reason I don’t like it. I start wearing the jacket in October (a month early!!) and people give me grief for it. I’m too old to care. I also like the hat. I think passengers like seeing the hat. It’s an opinion, nothing more.

I saw the sample in NY the material feels cheap and flimsy. I like the durability of the wool. Who doubts they didn’t go w the cheapest esp if they are paying for it?
We have never had uniform police other than ATL that I know of…so this will be one of those delayed roll out changes.
IMO

Well, it’s mandatory wear 4 months of the year (unless you are getting an awful lot of L rotations). Plus, it’s not uncommon to see in October and March due to colder temps up north. So really, there’s only about six months of the year that you don’t see horse blankets at all.

But I think the point is that if we are going to have a uniform jacket, having something that is distinctive and associated with the brand is a real and valuable thing. To me, if they are going to water down whatever image we do have with the SB, we might as well have a functional winter coat. Like a Northface or other technical jacket. Southwest has figured this out.

I really don’t get this dig. I’ve been based in both Atlanta and New York, and the only place I’ve ever seen uniform police was NYC, and that CP/RD got fired for it.

I'm going with the double breasted. It looks better in the pictures they provided.

There are an awful lot of Caribbean and central American destinations on many of the domestic fleets. So I usually average 2-3 months max of jacket wear.

The point is, it's silly to make a stand that our uniform makes us stand out when it's worn less than 1/4 of the year.

Thus my comment about L rotations.

I get your point, but it’s 1/3, minimum. Your bidding success is nowhere near the norm.

It has a lot more to do with it than the DBJ does.

Fascinating discussion,

To me, the "brand" argument falls flat when you remember the majority of consumers would easily mistake us for a bell hop.

You want brand image? Make sure your uniform fits (however many breasts), shine your shoes, look and act like a professional. I can tell you that I have a much easier time doing that in a modern single breasted jacket than a 1930s horse blanket.

To each their own, I guess that's why they are giving us the option.

You could ask that about anything.

Retirement pillar? To what end? I saved for retirement, too bad the deadzoners didn’t.

Professionalism? To what end? As long as I’m stable by 1,000’ and land in the touch down zone.

Courtesy? To what end? We’re not family and I don’t personally gain from being nice to you.

Uniforms? To what end? Nobody cares.

Teamwork and loyalty? To what end? Extract as much profit from the company as possible.

I hope you can sense the sarcasm. In the end, it’s fellow employees that make this job great or make it suck. You can choose who you’re going to be. Pretty much true everywhere. The sad thing is, people pretty much only care about themselves and don’t give a **** about fellow Delta employees.

I flew with a captain like you once. Bithched me out for filling out the menu request before him. “This used to be a captain’s airline!” Everything was about him. Set a good tone for the future of Delta.

What was the name of that truck driving school? I think I’m gonna need that.

You do know the other single breasted airlines are hiring, right? Does SWA even have a blazer? Did you not know what you were getting into when you started with Delta?

Yikes. I'll wear a tootoo if they require it. Just telling you my opinion, brother.

I didn't go to Delta because of what uniform they wore. It was literally completely irrelevant to my decision. And now that I'm here, I realize how impractical they are and how ridiculous and stuffy we look as compared to literally every other professional pilot. I can want change and support a change without doing something as dumb as you're suggesting

​​​​​​What a prick. He must've been an Atlanta. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure we don't have CAs like that in NYC. And the special ones are few and far between. But nowhere as bad as this specimen.

Embrace change. You'll live longer.

Now, if we can just do beards next.

Multiple times actually.

Sorry, man. Just venting a bit.

Flew with a captain this week that not only didn’t wear a hat or blazer (flew with him before and no blazer), but also didn’t wear a tie. Complained he hadn’t gotten his second GS yet this month (it’s 3/11!).

I specifically applied here because the employees made this a special place to be. Our customers noticed and that’s how we got to be the best compensated. After 9 years here, I’ve realized that’s all pretty much gone now. No one gives a ****. It’s all about them.

Yeah, I’m a guy who still shines my shoes before I go to work.

Why does it matter if he wasn't wearing a blazer this week?

I don't care which one we keep, I just wish we'd pick one, because having both negates the entire purpose of a uniform. That aside, why do you care so much if other professional pilots think we "look stuffy." I think that airline pilots wearing the pilot sweater or a leather jacket, look beyond ridiculous. But I can almost guarantee that they couldn't care less what I think, and it certainly won't change the way I interact with them. The practicality of commuting with the current jacket is valid.

Flown with him before. He didn’t wear one during blazer season either.

This whole battle of uniform importance lives in the minds of deltoid pilots. You put way too much stock in NPS questions, as if the same questioned asked to a UA customer (How well dressed was your pilot?) would be terribly different. Passengers don't care that much about the nuance in buttons on your jacket, or your blazer color, etc.

Funny we have folks debating the dignity of our brand image, yet our corporate side has no problem outsourcing 1500+ daily flights to Skywest, Republic, EDV, (and historically several others) whose uniforms pieces include no hats, single breasted blazers, trench-coat, leather coat, sweater with epaulets, navy blue colors, different brass etc, all while being thanked for flying Delta. Guess what? Corporate not only knows most folks think they're still flying on Delta when they board that E175, they proactively try to blur the distinction. OBTW, I know our NPS on SKW is still very high, probably others too.

So yeah, If we switched buttons on our suit, or got a modern materials real coat option, etc, it would make an insignificant impact on our brand or bottom line. Most impactful in the minds of people who's identity is tied to their uniform.

I'm glad there's going to be options. FAs have far more customer exposure and have many options in their apparel. The semantics from folks here defining the word 'uniform' and complaining that everyone won't be forced to wear the same jacket is missing the forest for the trees. I value comfort over absolute uniformity in how fellow widget pilots look while on the clock. To me, even the single breasted option doesn't meet the standard of comfort that I'd be willing to vote for if given the choice, but with 15,000 opinions I'm glad we at least get 2 options (4 if you consider gender fluidity).

I’m on the other end of the spectrum. Pilots/flight attendants/mechanics/gate agents… each position needs 1 uniform. (2 if we’re going to do summer/winter.). It looks better as a group and has functionality identifying who works here.

The ultimate experiment in comfort was years ago when we did BCRF month and as an employee (not pilots) if you made a donation, you could wear a pink t-shirt and jeans ALL MONTH.

It was almost comical watching passengers come up the jet bridge and couldn’t find the gate agent to ask about connections, particularly international connecting customers that didn’t understand the fundraiser or speak English. Imagine the chaos of a bunch of t-shirts trying to corral passengers evacuating a jet if we had an emergency. On top of that, we looked like trash. Some can pull off pick-your-own-jeans day, some insist on 3 sizes too small!

Dress for the job you want. If we all dress like train engineers, expect to get paid like a train engineer.
https://media--cldnry-s--nbcnews-com...29p-67c3c0.jpg

And ironically, train engineers also wear funny hats.

There is zero data specific to our uniform. Pax aren’t formally asked. It’s not in NPS. The data doesn’t exist.

Nobody cares. At all.

I respectfully disagree that “nobody cares”.

Anything I’ve written has been solely my opinion on the matter and what I’ve witnessed anecdotally over 18 years and eight different uniforms.

Even in this thread we’ve seen two wives who do, in fact, care.

Speaking of tone-setting…why don’t you read my post again, and then your off the hook irrelevant diatribe.

I expressed curiosity about what effect the poster thought visually standing out might have. Nothing more, nothing less.

You might want to lay off the Monster drinks.

Hey!! I’m literally drinking a Monster Zero right now! 🤣

Love the way you jump to a conclusion and then use your bias to attempt to reinforce your perceived base(self) superiority.

Glad to know I can go back to stereotyping and not get called out on it! I wonder what ethnic group, gender, generation, political ideology etc I can now attack by way of stereotyping? Can you help me out since you think it's OK?

I was asking you, and you answered. Thanks.

I’ve been doing this gig a few years and wouldn’t say I have the data to support being responded to better or worse than my buddies at UAL/SWA/AA/Endeavor/Skywest. I’m all about happy pax, but my hunch is a smile and an unfurowed brow go farther than a double-breasted jacket in achieving that end. Who knows.

Personally, I run a little hot. I appreciate being able to vent a bit with an unbuttoned single breast jacket which isn’t a (fashionable) option with the DB.

News flash, they are everywhere. I flew with more NYC peeps like this than ATL…

Are you implying that the uniform is linked to the leverage our negotiators have under section 6? In that case the company should be tripping over themselves for such a uniform!

As for the fringe emergency example, the safety vest we already have in the flight deck takes care of mitigating this.

You misunderstood what they cared about. They picked the less of the 2 uglies.

has anyone seen the new uniform color? I’ve been told it will still be black, and in the pictures from PBs email, the female options certainly look black in the picture.

my bet is that the grey is an intentional alteration of the picture, since black photographs poorly.

All I know is that the samples in the bases looked like AA tried to change their uniforms to look like the traditional Delta one but didn't want to admit it.

There’s being on an L and then there’s “being” on an L. Statistically speaking there are a lot of Caribbean Cruisers out there.

At least they made the stripes a weird color to go with the sun faded gray.