United Airlines Upgrades Employee Guidelines to Reflect a More Inclusive Look

The next time you book a flight with United Airlines, you may notice a few changes in appearance for the company’s flight attendants and consumer-facing employees. The carrier has updated its employee appearance standards to include gender-inclusive revisions on visible tattoos, nose rings, nails, hair, and makeup. That’s right! The friendly skies are about to get queer friendlier when the new guidelines go into effect on Sept. 15. 

In a recent statement from their corporate headquarters in Chicago: “At United, we believe we are all connected by the similarities we recognize and the differences we celebrate in each other. We’ve updated our appearance standards to empower our employees to represent themselves in the way they feel most confident. Our modernized appearance guidelines promote a supportive, encouraging, and positive environment for our employees and customers alike.”

To be specific, customer-facing uniformed employees will be able to show off their tattoos if they are smaller than the size of their work badge. And nowadays, more cis men are wearing fingernail polish in our community. Well, the airline will also allow customer-facing uniformed employees to wear nail polish, too. 

Flight attendants won’t be able to walk down the plane’s narrow runway in a full drag queen “beat for the gods” look, they will however be able to wear natural-looking makeup. 

Hair length and style has often been a controvesial topic in corporate company culture, specifically with Black employees with natural crowns. However, United’s airport gate personnel and flight attendants can now wear their hair down if it’s shoulder length or short. All changes moving in a positive direction, according to United execs. 

“As the face of United, our customer-facing teammates can provide an even better experience for our customers when they look and feel their best,” said Kate Gebo, executive vice president of the airline’s department of human resources and labor relations, in a statement shared with employees in June.  

For more than a decade, United Airlines has earned a perfect score on Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a national benchmark that surveys and reports corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality.