Male pilots will be allowed to wear make up, painted nails, and carry pocketbooks on British Airways as the UK’s second largest airline carrier is set to transform its uniform rules.
Following the introduction of so-called gender neutral uniforms by their competitor Virgin Atlantic, British Airways is apparently trying to out-woke the Richard Branson airliner by allowing male pilots to wear makeup and don women’s handbags.
An internal briefing sent to staff seen by the Daily Mail this week said that they should “be bold, be proud, be yourself” and that BA hoped that the updated uniform standards would be “embraced by everyone regardless of gender, gender identity, ethnicity, background, culture, sexual identity, or otherwise”.
The new uniform rules will allow male pilots and cabin crew to wear a “touch of mascara and lip colour,” as well as wearing fake eyelashes and coloured fingernails.
Rules on the length of hair have also been loosened, with men now allowed to wear “man buns”. Visible tattoos still remain prohibited, however, and the actual uniforms themselves will remain different between men and women.
“We are proud of all of our colleagues at British Airways and we are committed to an inclusive working environment,” a British Airways spokesman said.
“We have worked with our people to create updated guidelines for grooming, beauty and accessories, allowing our colleagues to bring the best, most authentic version of themselves to work every day.”
The move comes after Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic introduced gender neutral uniforms in September to allow staff to “wear the clothing that expresses how they identify or present themselves”.
British Airways had already embarked upon the woke path, with the airliner announcing last year that it had instructed its crews to not refer to passengers as “ladies and gentlemen” in order to foster an ethos of “diversity and inclusion”.
This followed similar moves from the likes of Germany’s Lufthansa, Britain’s EasyJet, Air Canada, and Delta in the United States, all of whom have adopted woke language codes for the sky.
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