United Airlines Tells Flight Attendants to Wear Baggy Dresses After Botched Uniform Design

United Airlines is telling flight attendants to wear bigger dresses to get around a problem with its eagerly anticipated new uniform, which prevents dress wearers from raising their hands above their shoulders – essential for doing basic jobs like closing overhead bins or dealing with potential emergencies like an onboard fire.

After a development process that dragged on for more than seven years, flight attendants at the Chicago-based carrier are meant to start wearing the new Brooks Brothers and Tracy Reese-designed dresses from May 28, but staffers claim the program is riddled with problems.

“Foolish of me to think they’d actually correct the issue instead of blaming us FAs [flight attendants] for ordering our actual sizes,”

United Airlines flight attendant

One of the most significant issues with the uniform rollout is the dress’s design, which features elbow-length sleeves.

Despite extensive wear tests carried out by operational flight attendants, an issue with the sleeves preventing crew members from raising their arms up still hasn’t been fixed despite United Airlines reassuring uniform wearers that it was treating the issue as a “very high priority.”

The extent of the issue only became truly apparent when United launched its full-scale uniform rollout, only to then be inundated with complaints from crew members who quickly discovered the issue.

It wasn’t, however, just the uniform dress that didn’t fit as intended, and United has been forced to give every uniform wearer an allowance of $150 to get necessary alterations.

Last week, though, United released new uniform ordering guidelines to address the specific issue with the dress and advised flight attendants simply to size up – eliminating the immediate issue of the sleeves but leaving flight attendants with baggy, ill-fitting uniforms.

🌐 New Dresses “Fix”
byu/waitwhatshappenin inflightattendants

“Foolish of me to think they’d actually correct the issue instead of blaming us FAs [flight attendants] for ordering our actual sizes,” one crew member complained about United’s suggested fix for the problem.

Another flight attendant said she had already spent more than $160 to get one dress and a pair of pants tailored to her actual shape – blowing United’s alteration budget out of the water.

Thankfully, United has now agreed to increase its alteration budget to $70 per dress so that flight attendants can try to get dresses that are more form-fitting.

United Airlines first announced its intention to introduce a new uniform back in 2017, although the program has been marred by long delays and some questionable design choices

In fact, the uniform collection was subject to two major redesigns – first in 2019 and then in 2023, before the airline settled on a pared-back design featuring two shades of blue that are synonymous with the United brand.

It’s not just United Airlines that forgot that flight attendants have to raise their hands above their shoulders. The same issue affected the rollout of Spanish flag carrier Iberia’s female uniform, forcing the carrier to make adjustments to the otherwise well-received collection.

Matts Take – Yet Another Botched Airline Uniform Rollout

Is there an airline out there that can design and roll out a new uniform collection without facing ridicule? United Airlines is just the latest of a long list of airlines that have fumbled this all-important job and are now facing ridicule over the debacle.

To be fair to United, the airline made some pretty significant changes to the design if you compare what will be launched at the end of May 2025 to the poorly received concepts originally unveiled in 2019.

I’m increasingly irked by airlines choosing to get big-name designers in to create new uniforms as they so often forget about the very practical requirements of these garments. Perhaps Emirates isn’t wrong in designing its uniform in-house.