This New Airline Has Revealed a Genderless Uniform and it’s from a Country You Might Not Expect

A new start-up low-cost airline has revealed a genderless uniform collection that focuses on practicality rather than age or gender… but what’s most surprising is that the airline is based in a country you might not expect. Aero K is a proposed South Korean airline that hopes to start operating as soon as this month where traditionally airlines in the country have focused very much on gender, beauty and age.

According to local South Korean media, airlines such as Korean Air and Asiana remain reluctant to hire crew above the age of 30, while the director of a specialist cabin crew recruitment company once likened the hiring process to a “beauty contest”.

“I think you can compare it to some sort of beauty contest,” Airline News Center director Pablo Lee was quoted as saying by the Korean Herald.

“First of all, they have to be physically perfect… over 60 kg is kind of overweight, but rarely some people get hired even if they weigh more than that because they are tall,” he continued.”

The competition and the desire to look “perfect” can be so intense that some medical centres in South Korea even offer special cabin crew plastic surgery programs. “What is the image that comes to mind when you are a stewardess?,” asks Seoul’s Reborn Medical Centre. “Many people think of a stewardess as slim with a crisp egg-shaped face,” the translated website continues, offering ‘stewardess moulding’ procedures including rhinoplasty and forehead moulding.

That’s an image that Aero K, however, plans to shake up with its genderless uniform. “The practical uniform of Aero K was created based on caring and respect to perform various jobs better than age and gender,” the airline said of its new uniform in a Facebook post uploaded last week. “In the end, all this concern is to perform the most important mission of passenger’s safety.”

For the time being, though, you’ll have to wait a little longer to see these uniforms in real life. Aero K had originally hoped to be flying by April 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the process of it obtaining an air operators certificate. Now, the airline hopes to get the relevant approvals by some point in July could be flying by August.

Initially, Aero K will offer just one route between Cheongju and Jeju with a fleet of three Airbus A320 aircraft.