With international airlines quickly resuming flights to Israel, the national flag carrier El Al has decided that, after many years, it’s finally time to create a new look for its cabin crew, pilots, and other customer-facing employees.
On Thursday, the airline announced that it had decided to partner with the local fashion brand Renuar (not to be confused with a Canadian fashion company going by the same name) to create a new look for thousands of its employees.
El Al Israel Airlines had been pitting several local fashion brands against one another before opting for Renuar – one of Israel’s largest fashion companies, which designs and sells both men’s and wear.
The airline says it wants its new threads to “reflect professionalism, modernity, comfort, and Israeli pride.”
For a long time, the airline has had the same uniform, which comprises simple dark blue dresses and thin neck scarves or twillies for female crew, along with plain blue suits and white shirts for men.
As is pretty standard nowadays, El Al plans to involve frontline staff as much as possible in the design process, and will run surveys and workshops to find out what crew needs from the collection in terms of comfort and practicality.
“After many years in which our people have provided service wearing EL AL’s familiar uniforms, we are now embarking on an exciting process of refreshing the uniforms for both air and ground crews,” commented Lee Ben Hamo, Head of Marketing Communications and Customer Experience at the airline.
“We are proud of the collaboration with Renuar and believe the result will reflect the transformation EL AL has undergone in recent years and its Israeli identity, while maintaining uncompromising comfort and quality.”
El Al has been investing in its onboard experience in recent years, especially with its new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which have been a significant improvement on what passengers had long been accustomed to.
Since the October 7 terror attacks in 2023, El Al found itself in the rather odd position of becoming one of the only ways for people to get to Israel after international rivals withdrew from the Israeli market for long periods.
El Al has portrayed itself as a beacon of national pride, maintaining an airbridge to Israel while international carriers abandoned passengers. This narrative has not, however, always been plain sailing.
With El Al being the only airline operating to many destinations, the carrier was accused of price gouging, leading to bumper profits. Those accusations have been reinforced by the airline’s objection to the low-cost European airline Wizz Air proposing to open a base in Tel Aviv.
El Al believes that allowing Wizz Air to muscle in with a large base in Israel would threaten national security, as there could be no guarantee that Wizz wouldn’t quickly shut up shop should regional tensions escalate once again.
Unfortunately, we are yet to find out when El Al plans to launch the new uniform.
