After a lengthy design and development process that took more than seven years, United Airlines has finally set the date for flight attendants to start wearing a long-awaited new uniform designed by Tracy Reese and Brooks Brothers.
On May 28, 2025, flight attendants at the Chicago-based carrier are expected to switch from wearing the decade-old current uniform to new designer threads that were once likened to uniforms you might have expect to see on the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise before a major rework was ordered.
Having first announced the massive task of redesigning a uniform collection for tens of thousands of flight attendants, pilots and customer service agents back in 2017, United was forced to make significant changes to the designs on several occasions.
The first time that United revealed what the uniform could look like was in 2019 but it was only a matter of months before United acted on negative feedback and started making design changes, such as removing the piping on the male flight attendant blazer and a grey stripe on the side of the female skirt, due to overwhelming employee feedback.
When the COVID-19 pandemic upended the aviation industry in early 2020, United quietly but temporarily shelved the new uniform project and it wasn’t until 2023 that we got a glimpse of yet another reworked version of the uniform.
In that time, United ditched a varied color palette of purples, blues, and greys and instead opted for two shades of blue that are synonymous with the United brand.
Since then, United has been carrying out an extensive wear test and for a number of months the airline has been slowly sending out boxes stuffed full of the new uniforms to employees across the United States and beyond.
Despite a firm date for the switchover now having been set, there are still a few creases that need ironing out.
Some flight attendants are still missing key items of new uniform and winter outerwear isn’t expected to arrive until later this summer. A key issue with the sleeves on the dress is also being addressed by the airline as a “very high priority” while flight attendants have been given a $150 allowance to make alterations to various uniform pieces.
Frequent United flyers may already been familar with the new uniform as United launched a new safety video featuring flight attendants wearing the uniform last year.
One item of the new uniform was launched last year in the form of new name badges and ‘wings’ that allow flight attendants to display their preferred pronouns. Rather than having a seperate name badge and wings, flight attendants now wear a combined badge.
