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.

 

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! 🤣