For the carrier that sure seems like the most fun airline in the world, Turkish Airlines almost had a lot of people (not) seeing red, recently. It all started when it emerged that the carrier was planning on banning its female flight crew from wearing red lipstick and red nail polish. Turkey’s national airline said it wanted to give flight attendants a “natural look” so that they are “artless and well-groomed with makeup in pastel tones”.
Reading this, we began scratching our proverbial heads because clearly, this was sounding rather comp l i c ate d ! Little did we know it was going to get worse: “As a consequence of our current cabin uniforms not including red, dark pink, et cetera, the use of lipstick and nail polish in these colours by our cabin crew impairs visual integrity”, a statement from Europe’s fourth-biggest airline went on to explain… only somewhat ambiguously.
“Visual integrity,” hmmm yes of course, we completely concur. And so, with no idea what the PR hacks were talking about, we did what we always do when confronted by the unknown… we Googled it. Unfortunately that just made us more confused…authenticity, esthetics? The Belly Achers then decided a more rational, common sense approach was necessary.
Since the airline was concerned over the specific colour red, particularly on the extremities like the nails and up higher on the lips, we could only conclude that it was a safety issue. Imagine the confusion, should a stewardess – wearing Russian Red lipstick and nail polish by MAC (Google told us this is a hot seller for that classic Marylyn Monroe look) – enter the cockpit during flight to serve the pilots tea. The red accoutrements could be mistaken for ground-based navigational lighting causing them to take sudden and unnecessary course correction, possibly endangering the safety of the aircraft. Or, possibly they could be mistaken for warning lights in the cockpit, again resulting in potentially catastrophic action being taken by the flight crew.
Socio-political commentators of course had to come up with their own explanation for the whole tempest-ina- teapot – some rubbishy thing about ideology, politics and religion. Sheesh, we reckon they just heard about our theory from some mole within our organisation – we’re water boarding a few suspects as we speak – and had to try and come up with something even more complicated than the public relations obfuscation – and that is not an easy task!
But in the end, the airline rescinded its red ban after consulting ICAO and IATA safety gurus who, we hear, advised all female flight attendants to be issued with dark, flat hued gloves and face masks so as to cover the red decorative touches when entering the flight deck and thus, preserving the integrity of the aircraft’s flight safety.
Turkish of course had its own story for the about-face – and one we might add that apparently didn’t make use of the obtuse and pedantic messaging of Turkish’s PR agency. Although we are inclined to think it might have been a better idea, given the explanation proffered by the airline’s chief executive who pushed the blame – as any good boss does – straight to his subordinates, claiming the ban was thought up by junior managers. “As to the lipstick, we had no problems but somehow low-level managers put together a paper without asking us and that paper leaked to the media and became a big issue,” the CEO told journalists. “As you know, some in Turkey are a little bit keen about these issues.” We’re pretty confident he’s referring to in-flight safety issues. He went on to confirm that female staff would continue to wear lipstick and nail polish of any colour if they wished, adding that this was important for the standards of such “a great global carrier”.
Rocky horror! And speaking of the ‘dangers’ of wearing red lipstick, enter Sir (Dame) Richard (Richarda) Branson! While we’re not quite sure we want to know about the Virgin Group founder and chairman’s private leisure activities, but if his recent stint as a ‘dolled-up’ flight attendant onboard an AirAsia flight earlier this year is any indication, we’re guessing he has an autographed copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in his den! We mean, really, from all accounts he did seem to enjoy his cross dressing stint a wee bit too much, if you know what we mean! But we have to give ‘props’ to Sir Richard for being true to character and stepping out of his comfort zone… and straight into the drag role, shaving his legs, slipping on some silky nylons, shimmying into a sexy blouse and tight fitting skirt.
In short, a faux-sultry, lipstick-wearing, Sir Richard worked his derrière off as a flight attendant aboard an AirAsia X flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur, about three months ago pouring coffee, tea, serving meals, distributing goodies, entertaining and making in-flight announcements on the flight which helped to raise money for charity.
And hey, if the entrepreneur/stewardess gig doesn’t work out, he can always audition for a role in the next musical presentation of Rocky Horror – just one piece of advice… lose the facial hair!
