Tattoos Takeoff: Visible Tattoos Can Now Be Shown Off By Airline Employees At Work

By Sidra Lackey

But not so fast. It’s not the new tattoo policy for all airlines. The latest airline to adopt this aviation achievement is Virgin Atlantic, located in the United Kingdom. This summer, Virgin Atlantic became the first UK airline to allow employees to showcase their visible tattoos.

In a press release, Estelle Hollingsworth, Chief People Officer at Virgin Atlantic, remarked on the monumental change: “At Virgin Atlantic, we want everyone to be themselves and know that they belong. Many people use tattoos to express their unique identities and our customer-facing and uniformed colleagues should not be excluded from doing so if they choose. That's why, in line with our focus on inclusion and championing individuality, we're relaxing our tattoo restrictions for all our people. We're proud to be the airline that sees the world differently and allows our people to truly be themselves.”

International Flight Attendants Day was on May 31 and Virgin Atlantic posted photos on their social media Twitter, with tattooed employees in uniform, celebrating them. The tweet accompanying the tattooed airline workers said: "Today we’re championing the dazzling collection of individuals who are our wonderful cabin crew. We’ve always encouraged our people to be themselves, so from today, they can now show their tattoos with pride."

What about tattoo policies for airlines in the United States? United Airlines is the latest US airline to modify tattoo policies for employees. Last year 2021, effective Sept. 15, “any customer-facing uniformed employee” was allowed to have visible tattoos. A statement from United Airlines on the policy change stated: “We’ve updated our appearance standards to empower our employees to represent themselves in the way they feel most confident.” However, the changes have a caveat that says, “tattoos can only be visible as long as they are smaller than the size of their work badge.”

Is that really a win for tattooed airline employees then? Because if an employee or employee-to-be has a visible tattoo bigger than the size of an airline badge, sleeves for example, the new policy is nothing to be excited about. An old version of United Airlines Flight Attendant Appearance Standards from 2013 states outright: “Tattoos must never be visible while in uniform. You are seen as a representative of the United brand whenever you are in uniform. It is important to convey a professional and positive image each day you come to work.”

  Yes, it’s a huge step that tattoos now can be shown, even with the limitation of size. But at the same time, by having the size stipulation still on a tattoo, it shows United Airlines doesn’t think showing tattoos on a more massive scale is professional or positive. Perhaps United Airlines should take a literal page out of the book of Virgin Atlantic’s Appearance Standards, where no tattoo for an airline worker, seems to be too big, to be seen in their uniform.