Qatar Flight Attendant Strict Look Necessities for Each Flight

Flight attendants — significantly girls — have been topic to strict look requirements all through the start of the jet age to the mid-Nineteen Nineties. Many airways stated this lured in high-paying vacationers and created an elevated model.

Stewardesses, as they have been known as then, could not be too tall or too quick, too outdated or too younger. They could not be heavy-set — and so they needed to be single and childless. Within the Nineteen Seventies, Southwest Airways, for instance, fitted its flight attendants in sizzling pants and gogo boots.

Globally, the aviation trade has since shifted to focus its flight attendants extra narrowly on security and repair. With that also come look requirements like skirt and nail size, carrying a tie, and hair model guidelines, however they’re far much less demanding in comparison with previous eras.

Some Western carriers in the present day enable feminine cabin crew to put on tennis sneakers as a substitute of heels, or pants as a substitute of skirts and attire. Most also can select to put on minimal or no make-up, whereas some airways enable males to put on stud earrings.

Nevertheless, some carriers have but to ditch the standard look expectations and preserve extra conservative pointers.

Qatar Airways is thought within the trade for having strict codes of look and different issues, probably an effort to keep up its luxury-focused model and professionalism. The airline, with its exacting requirements, has been rated the world’s finest, as of 2024.

Qatar says the strict guidelines have not deterred cabin crew purposes: A spokesperson advised Enterprise Insider that solely 6% to eight% of the tens of 1000’s of candidates are accepted.

BI spoke with Qatar flight attendants Daina Haughton and Milan Rankovic and elegance specialist Kristine Odejar to study extra concerning the airline’s look regime.

Make-up, pores and skin, and nail necessities

Haughton stated Qatar flight attendants discover ways to do their hair and make-up in preliminary coaching.

This entails working with “grooming officers” like Odejar, who assist match flight attendants’ make-up to their pores and skin tone and texture and educate them how you can apply it finest utilizing completely different brushes and pens.

Haughton stated the coaching wasn’t “laborious,” however the consultants supplied ideas that cabin crew “can do to appropriate sure issues that you just would not simply know.” She added that she spends two hours preparing for flights, setting apart one hour for hair and make-up.

Throughout a coaching session noticed by BI, Odejar defined the foundations for the essential make-up gadgets required for feminine cabin crew members.

She stated they want “full protection” basis and concealer, black mascara that is not “too clumpy,” and matte or sheen blush (no glitter).

Lipstick and nail colours will be deep pink, deep pink, or burgundy, whereas nail polish choices additionally embrace nude, clear, or French. The burgundy theme is in step with Qatar’s model coloration.

Odejar provides ideas like utilizing long-lasting concealer as a result of it is “bulletproof” and will not come off the face, and utilizing powder to set the make-up. She additionally stated to prioritize pores and skin well being.

Qatar additionally doesn’t enable seen tattoos, a standard guideline throughout most world airways. Nevertheless, some carriers like Virgin Atlantic Airways have develop into extra lenient and permit tattoos of varied sizes.

Strict hairstyles and clear mustaches for males

Haughton stated the appropriate coiffure for girls is a bun located low sufficient in order that the uniform hat can match over it. She added that hair cannot be too oily and should be a pure coloration if dyed; no rainbow.

Additional, cabin crew should use hair nets to cowl the bun, and so they can select to make use of one or two scrunchies; Haughton prefers two.

Odejar described the grooming pointers for males’s hair, which embrace correctly styling it and utilizing grooming wax or clay to make it look neat and clean.

“You principally simply want to use an honest quantity of product so it would not look over-gelled or having that type of moist look impact,” she stated.

Rankovic stated male cabin crew can have facial hair, however solely mustaches, not beards.

He stated the mustache must be neatly shaven, can not develop over the higher lip or under the lip line, and should be grown out by the point a visit begins.

“Principally, it’s good to present up for the flights with [a] absolutely grown mustache,” Rankovic stated. “So it’s good to do it in your days off.”

He added that the remainder of the face should be clearly shaven; no 5 o’clock shadows. The beard ban helps preserve a clear {and professional} look.

Qatar advised the Every day Telegraph in December that grey hair can be not allowed, and bald spots should be lined.

Uniforms should be neat and actual

Qatar flight attendants are supplied with particular uniforms, together with skirts, pants, blazers, and plain socks with no logos or designs. Ladies put on hats, and males put on ties.

Each crew member should carry a spare uniform in case of spills or different messes in the course of the flight. Additionally they have a separate winter jacket when touring to colder climates.

A Qatar grooming teacher stated the one males’s accent allowed is a watch, whereas girls’s jewellery is proscribed to a watch, easy stud earrings, and single-banded rings.

Married girls can put on their wedding ceremony ring so long as the stone is embedded: “If the stone is protruding, it [creates] a security subject,” the teacher stated. “They will injure themselves; they will injure the purchasers.”

Ladies additionally put on stockings, however they should be matte and complement their pores and skin coloration. The teacher stated Qatar encourages carrying fragrance, however ones with a smooth or delicate perfume in order to not irritate prospects.

Flight attendants put on completely different uniform items relying on the section of the flight. For instance, Haughton stated she wears one jacket on the bottom, similar to throughout boarding and strolling via airports. In the course of the service, she modifies right into a blue “eating” jacket.

Every feminine flight attendant additionally has a black purse that may be locked with a private passcode. Haughton stated the code is important as a result of the luggage are equivalent and it is easy to combine them up with one other crewmember’s.

She stated the usual bag gadgets are their crew-issued smartphone, a notepad, their passport, and any make-up they might have to reapply all through the day.