Furious female British Airways staff have blasted the airline over ‘cheap’ uniforms designed for non-binary crew.
BA last year relaxed the rules around its strict uniform policy and went gender-neutral to allow male pilots and crew to wear make-up and carry handbags.
And, at the start of this year, BA unveiled a new uniform for the first time in two decades designed to ‘take the airline into the next chapter’
Although the new uniforms were gendered, BA’s new policy now allows staff who identify as a certain gender to wear that clothing.
Designed by British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng, the sleek new look included a ‘modern jumpsuit’, skirt and trouser options for women and a tailored three-piece suit for men with regular and slim-fit style trousers.
BA heralded the launch as ‘marking a new era’ for the airline, but now some of its female staff have hit out at the ‘cheap’ look of the uniform, while others have described the uniforms as ‘deliberately androgynous’.
Meanwhile, BA’s self-styled ‘Pride Hero’ Bradley Gibbons, who is non-binary, posted a picture at work in the new dress, after the airline’s non-binary and gender fluid staff won the right to wear the women’s uniforms.
The new uniforms were tested in secret trials last year and finally launched across its workforce on Monday.
The uniform has skirt, jumpsuit and trouser options available for women.
A source told The Sun ‘the whole thing is a mess’.
‘This is an attack on women to satisfy BA’s woke credentials when all they needed to do was produce a dedicated uniform for non-binary and gender fluid crew,’ they said.
The fresh garb was mooted to be rolled-out across its workforce in the spring but the airline officially announced its launch on Monday.
Posting on its Facebook page with promotional photos of staff kitted out in the new threads, BA said: ‘Marking the beginning of a new era, our new uniform has taken flight.’
The airline unveiled the new uniform in January and said at the time that Boateng took great care in ‘designing a truly original collection, taking inspiration from the airline, its people of the art of flying’.
Boateng has been developing the collection since 2018 with ‘painstaking care’, the airline reveals. It says that he shadowed a number of airport roles to understand how the uniform needed to perform for each job and ensure a ‘modern British, stylish look’ with high quality, resilient fabrics.
