I have at this juncture, donned many uniforms be they aviation related or not. I hate uniforms, and despite being aware of my own educational limitations, understand that uniforms are our cultural means of segregating professional and social groups, so we identify them with ease. In business this is particularly helpful because no one wants to confuse McDonald’s with Burger King or worse KFC.

I have obviously noted the social pilot uniform that, some could say positively, has been conceptually eroded by a new generation of pilots whose origins differ significantly from pilots of previous eras. There is an allowance societally, and socially, to give breathing room for individuals to be themselves, although this is still heavily influenced by a desire to fit in to some group or other despite the intended outcome. That social pilot uniform, like the uniform of South Dublin middle-class women that involves wearing Veja sneakers with everything, is unmistakable – light coloured slacks, pressed shirt (tucked into trouser) and safe shoes. It says I am stable and unlikely to go outside the lines, which to most people is exactly how they want their pilots to behave.

However, this social uniform is under severe pressure as the requirement to conform with anything at all, apart from who you follow on TikTok, seems completely up to the individual. Pilots now come from a wide swath of backgrounds and thus they do not originate from a particular class or environment. This can only be perceived as positive. A rich mixture of experience and backgrounds leads to new ways of thinking, expanded understanding that there may be more than one path and, in many cases, ensures that people are not taken for granted by virtue of familiarity. I wasn’t exactly gifted this opportunity myself.

As I’ve written about previously, I’ve worked in many airlines and the rules governing uniforms vary from place to place, and person to person. Some airlines have hats, some have trench coats, and some expect people to remove items of uniform, hats and coats, in order of seniority. Need it be said again – Jesus wept! With all of this nonsense and the grand ideas people have about their uniforms one thing has always stuck with me. Some pilots have absolutely zero pride in their uniform. This may seem surprising to some of you, but I’ve seen this in living colour. It has left me speechless, I would almost say heartbroken.

I have flown with many former military pilots in my short aviation career and to a person their uniforms are consistently immaculate. It got to the point that I had to ask one of them. To which he responded that a “uniform is a means of establishing and communicating an understanding of what an individual’s standards are” “Are you saying a poor uniform is an indicator of less than desirable professional standards?” I asked probing for more. “I’m pretty sure that is what I just said” he retorted dryly. “So, if someone has crap uniform standards it would suggest they will not know their memory items, will probably turn up late and very likely have bad CRM” I propose with an eager look on my stupid face. “Now you are getting it” he replies and adds that I should always “remember, when you’re on time, you’re late”. This momentarily confuses me and then I realise this is his version of the 5-minute rule – be 5 minutes early for the start of any engagement or meeting. It is refreshing to know at the very least I am on the right track, and I would never have realised for a moment how this would help me outside of aviation.

Like many pilots – I have alluded to this in previous blogs – I had to engage in employment in places I just would not have thought of before the pandemic. Covid19 was a game changer for the industry and for the lives of all involved, especially those who were not management or training pilots. i.e., First Officers. I am in no way ashamed to say that I did what it took to ensure my loans were paid and my income allowed me a Netflix subscription to pass the time locked indoors for weeks on end. I worked as a fast-food delivery person, an Amazon driver, in Tesco as a shelf stocker and cashier (can’t count to save my life bar the three times tables) and an office admin to my mother – who was working from home. In all bar one of these jobs, I had to wear a uniform and really my Mom refused to allow me work for her in my sliders and pyjamas. In Tesco when I turned up without my safety shoes on, I got sent home and when my shirt wasn’t tucked in the manager took me aside and told me I needed to clean up my act. “You look like you don’t want this job and based on the level of unemployment caused by the Kung-Flu I would say you need this job more than I need your shitty attitude” is how I remember it being put to me. To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. I needed that job badly and realised that my uniform, as my ex-military colleague had put it, was reflecting how much pride I was taking in every aspect of the job.

I had always considered myself a very professional and diligent person, despite being absolutely clueless in social situations, but I realised that my aviation professionalism stopped there and was less to do with high personal standards as much as fear of looking bad. Unease at looking like a muppet is not a good reason to be good at your job, the only reason to be good at your job is because you have personal standards that respect not just yourself but those you work with. This coming to me in the middle of a pandemic – smelling like salsa that I had just cleaned up from the floor in aisle 5 of my local Tesco – was earth shattering. Who’d have thought that Shane the floor manager would deliver this lesson more clearly than any aviation professional I had been lucky to work with, was what I was thinking. And then I realised, that nope, this lesson had been taught many times I was just too busy daydreaming or being a clown to decipher the message.

Taking what I learned back to the aviation world post pandemic was easy because all I wanted in the world was to fly airplanes. When I explained this sentiment to my Mom, she politely reminded me I “should also want Covid19 to stay relatively benign and for less people to die of it this year” She has a way with words. Despite the reality check my sentiments remained essentially the same; I wanted to be the best version of me that I could be. I failed two job interviews and finally got a job, which I think is more to do with those companies than me not being prepared for interview. I say that being fully aware my inability to summon the words ‘critical angle’ in a discussion on aerodynamics was embarrassing and indicates that maybe I could have been better prepared, but I don’t want to get into that right now.

What I have come to realise since returning to the skies is that a number of pilots seem to have decided they want to look like they are working from home rather than operating a highly sophisticated aircraft. It is a bizarre set of circumstances. I now have to use duty travel to position for operating and have noted the following:

• Black denim jeans instead of trousers
• Trousers not ironed
• Shirts not ironed (some not even washed)
• Top buttons open with ties hanging loose
• Variations on shoes from Chelsea-boots to safety shoes with steel toe caps
• Man-buns, long beards, and one guy with an undercut!

The above isn’t exhaustive, as it can’t be, however the trend is there with an unusually low level of respect being afforded to the profession and what we all know should be a higher standard. It is not unique to any one group as I travel on every single operator and see legacy, low cost and all in between. What happened to taking pride in achieving the highest possible standards and ensuring your Granny would be proud if she saw you walking into the cabin to take her on her holidays. She sure as shit isn’t going to tell everyone her son is the pilot if he looks like he’s just pulled an 18-hour shift driving a truck across the continent.

I guess what I am getting at is that I try really hard to be as good as I can at my job, and I don’t understand why every pilot doesn’t wake up every single day and comport themselves as though their family will be on board the aircraft. Don’t get me wrong I make a lot of mistakes, which I attribute to youth rather than a defective personality, but I don’t know what’s happened to the pilot. We were a proud, and respected group of professionals, yet some of us are eroding that pride, and by extension the trust of the travelling public, because we have forgotten what it means to be a pilot. It is cool to be yourself on your own time, but when you turn up to work you should look like a professional no matter where you work. To quote Abe Simpson I think most pilots need to get back to having “a haircut you can set your watch to”. And, at very least act like you want to be taken seriously at the helm of aircraft worth millions of Euros, not to mention all those lives you’re responsible for.

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