ROME - Alitalia flight assistants have been forced to wear heavy woollen hats as part of their winter uniform, while temperatures in Italy soar. Management have declared that the headgear “must always be worn on any occasion” - on board, of course, and then “in open / indoor airport spaces open to the public, especially in the terminals; in the path from the parking to the workplace […] in the common areas at the hotel, both on departure and on arrival; in the managerial areas,” as reported in Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. 

 Over the past ten years, the struggling airline has changed significantly: going from public to private, competing with varying stock exchanges, and facing bankruptcy on three separate occasions. But one thing has remained the same throughout, and that is the insistence for on-board staff to wear their woollen winter uniform all year round. According to trade unions, summer uniforms have been promised, but they still have not arrived.

 The company have, however, invested in new cutlery for the Business Class passengers’ meals. “It’s the nth time in a few years” flight attendants told Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. According to the leaders of the company, the previous spoons did not work. Only the spoons were replaced, not all the cutlery. Italian luxury brand Richard Ginori has supplied Alitalia with cutlery since 2009, but the deal with the company expired in 2017. Alitalia has since got its cutlery from Dutch company Sola, which ironically, in Roman dialect, means “rip-off.” The money spent by Alitalia on cutlery is not known.

 Last summer, amidst protests about the suffocating uniform from staff and trade unions, Alitalia executives promised that they would no longer be obligatory from summer 2017, which is not the case. This was an empty promise, because crew must wear the full winter uniform, supposedly “for every season”: men wear trousers, a jacket and a waistcoat made of 100 per cent winter wool, as well as a synthetic fabric shirt, while women put on a woollen skirt and jacket, long-sleeved dress or suit. Not to mention the hat. 

 Italian transport trade union Uil Trasporti have stated “Wearing this winter uniform with the current exceptionally warm temperatures means putting the staff in a state of extreme unease.”