When booking a flight on Delta Airlines, only pie-eyed optimists expect to arrive at their destinations on time, if at all. Among travel consultants, Delta is an acronym for Doesn’t Ever Leave the Airport and the airline’s recent IT snafu that grounded tens of thousands of passengers around the world served yet another reminder. Delta enjoys a near monopoly on many of the routes the airline flies, so CEO Ed Bastian understandably doesn’t see much benefit investing in state-of-the-art computer systems.
Bastian has residents in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and many other major cities by the cajones. Bastian knows it and is always on the lookout for new ways to exploit his government given advantage and stick it to his hapless customers. I have some thoughts Bastian might find helpful.
Speaking of cajones and related body parts, Delta passengers who are fortunate to eventually find themselves airborne are assured of one thing as they ascend to 35,000 ft: Their flight attendants are wearing underwear.
How would I know this intimate detail, you ask? It’s because one can’t get hired as a Delta flight attendant showing up to a job interview without wearing their undies, an increasingly popular practice known as going commando, which refers to elite soldiers who must be prepared to fight on a moment’s notice.
The underwear mandate was contained in a leaked two-page Delta document first reported by Mateusz Maszczynski, an experienced flight attendant who writes a blog focused on the passenger experience and “human centric” aviation stories. Entitled “Appearance Requirements Acknowledgment,” the document articulates what’s expected of candidates when meeting for an in-person assessment by Delta’s recruiters, and reenacting Sharon Stone’s famous scene in Basic Instinct is expressly prohibited.
When I stumbled on Maszczynski’s scoop I thought it was a joke, but Gary Leff, who writes a thoughtful blog called View from the Wing, picked up the story and provided some valuable context. Turns out, Delta isn’t the first airline concerned about its flight attendants flying commando. Leff reported that two years ago, Pakistan International Airlines laid out an underwear requirement for its flight attendants.
PIA would have ranked among the airlines whose flight attendants I’d least expect to be flying commando, but I was clearly mistaken.
“It has been observed with great concern that a few cabin crew tend to dress casually while traveling intercity, staying in hotels and visiting various suffices,” PIA General Manager Flight Services Aamir Bashir instructed. “Such dressing leaves a poor impression on the viewer and portrays a negative image of not only the individual but also of the organization.
“The clothing worn by males and females should be in accordance with our cultural and national morals,” Bashir said.
Corporate management and executive leadership are recurring themes of this blog, particularly reporting on issues that keep chief people officers up at night. It seems reasonable to assume that Joanne Smith, Delta’s CPO, and her team encountered enough applicants showing up for interviews sans their underwear they felt the need to issue some guidance, or alternatively, someone in Smith’s department has too much time on their hands.
Here’s some perspective I’m doubtful you’ll ever find in the Harvard Business Review.
According to a YouGov poll last year, seven percent of the respondents said they always go commando, while 10% said they often do, 18% said they sometimes do, and 19% percent said they rarely do. Given that only 40% of respondents said they never go commando, it seems that at any given moment there’s a lot more Americans walking around without underwear than I imagined.
Moreover, an argument can be made that Delta’s no commando policy infringes on the health of its flight attendants. According to Healthline, there are some meaningful benefits to discarding one’s undies, and if you want to learn about them, this article gives a detailed explanation. Writing about yeast and jock itch prevention is too far afield for this blog.
What fascinates me is that America’s cultural mores have changed so dramatically that a major corporation felt compelled to instruct job applicants to avoid practices those of my generation would never have fathomed.
Growing up, we were warned to avoid “potty mouth”, or we’d experience having our mouths washed out with soap. Chewing gum in class was also prohibited. Children who didn’t bathe regularly or showed up to school without fresh clothing were mercilessly ridiculed for having “BO.”
Generation Z apparently was raised with very different mores, given that Delta’s memo warns that job applicants should not use profanity during their interviews and that chewing gum isn’t permitted throughout their assessment day. In addition to instructing candidates that “proper undergarments must be worn but must not be visible,” the Delta memo counsels applicants they must maintain their personal cleanliness and hygiene and that fingernails must be clean, neat, and trimmed.
The document further instructs that interview clothing must be “professional and fit properly,” and skirts mustn’t be too short. Painted nails are fine, providing they are the same color and aren’t neon shades, adornments, or glitter. Unlike a growing number of airlines, Delta still bans visible tattoos, although flight attendants can have tattoos if covered by the uniform or waterproof makeup. Covering tattoos with bandages is no-no.
As for hair, Delta says that it must be a “natural-looking hue” with no stark highlights or unnatural shades. The unisex guidelines also allow applicants to have a single side-nose piercing, as well as two earrings per ear, although hoops and ear stretchers are banned.
Delta’s policies would prevent the entire staff of my local Peet’s coffee from ever getting hired, despite performing many of the same functions as flight attendants, albeit on the ground and in a more expansive space.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, as the saying goes, so I wonder why Delta hasn’t yet banned passengers from flying commando, particularly given that the airline allegedly removed a woman from a flight because she wasn’t wearing a bra. My guess is the airport body scanners travelers must walk through could easily detect the presence of undergarments, providing Delta with an opportunity for a new revenue generating scheme.
If the scanner flags a passenger attempting to fly commando, a Delta agent could pull customers aside and sell them Delta certified underwear or a pair of stylish Bastian boxers. Victoria’s Secret might consider a line of Delta endorsed flying or job interview lingerie. The idea seems a natural for Target, which “Prides” itself on selling niche undergarments.
Alternatively, Delta might consider introducing a new class of service. Leff, the View from the Wing editor, reports the airline is possibly looking to charge for services that long have been included with the purchase of a Business Class seat. Perhaps Delta might consider introducing a new “class” of flight attendant.
Premium paying customers would be tended to by underwear-clad flight attendants wearing stylish uniforms who would be polite and possess considerable polish ad poise. Coach customers would be tended to by tattooed, gum chewing flight attendants named Amber and K-Rod flying commando who would be empowered to tell passengers “To go f—- themselves” if they dared to complain.
Given Delta’s supposed concern for its corporate image, it might behoove chief people officer Joanne Smith and her team to read up about Jewish cultural rules and practices. A Jewish flight attendant is suing Delta Airlines, claiming religious discrimination after he was served a ham sandwich by his employer and not allowed to take the day off on Yom Kippur.
For the benefit of Smith and her team, a ham sandwich isn’t kosher and Jews regard Yom Kippur as the holiest day of the year.