Qantas bans flip-flops, shorts and vests from airport lounges
 

Reported in (UK newspaper) The Independent: Qantas dress code: Airline bans flip-flops, shorts and vests from airport lounges - Travel - The Independent

Sydney Morning Herald:Qantas suffers backlash over lounge dress code
[In OZ a pair of 'Thongs' are flip-flop sandals}

With the boom in the mining industry and the huge wages earn by miners, many of them commute by air all over Australia to follow their X weeks on/X weeks off type of roster. They can easily accumulate the miles required for higher status in a frequent flyer program which gives lounge access.

These are not the sort of people that the planners had in mind when FFPs were designed. Lounges were there for business men and the upper demographic of society. Flying was special and people got dressed up and behaved themselves.

These days a dump truck driver on a mine can easily be on US$80 000 a year and if living on the other side of the country can earn enough miles to qualify for a gold level FFP card. He doesn't normally travel in a suit and tie and regards a T shirt, jeans and training shoes as getting dressed up compared to his normal vest, shorts and flip flops.

Problems have been encountered with miners arriving early at the airport for their flight home and getting plastered in the bar whilst waiting. Now mining companies coordinate the drop off so that there is minimal time until boarding.

FFPs are down market compared to twenty or thirty years ago, a bit like the number of credit card holders having Platinum cards.

Onya, Quaintass! :ok:

It also possibly related to the Emirates - Qantas codeshare agreement and Emirates lounge already have this as a dress requirement, so bringing the domestic and long haul rules together ?

From the Qantas terms and conditions effective March 31st, 2011.

10.7 Smart, casual dress standards apply at all times. Individual lounge managers will have discretion to administer these standards as they reasonably deem appropriate in the circumstances.

If Qantas wants to use thongs as an excuse to keep a female sex worker, known in my days of use and in the politest possible word available in the dictionary as a prostitute, from entering the lounges then well done to the airline. It's bad enough having the places littered with half cut public servants, politicians, diplomats and business travellers on expense accounts without the admission of pimps, whores and charlatans.

Good, I support.

It's thongs, not flips flops. Get it right. :ok:

cavortingcheetah

I think you'll find a thong, in the sense it is used here, relates to a type of footwear - rather than the garment you seem to be more familiar with :E

I loved the quote from the Qantas spokesman:

"Qantas announced in February that we would be administering the lounge’s smart casual dress codes more closely from April 1st 2015.

We appreciate this may have caused some frustration but we’re not in a position to flip-flop on the policy."

DR,
I got a chuckle from that "flip-flop" quote myself.
Now, how will Qantas sensitively deal with our our Kiwi cousins?

Y'see, the Kiwis don't wear 'flip-flops' or 'thongs' - they wear 'jandals'.
I do hope the Legal Department is working on the issue.

I thought the correct term was 'New Zealand safety sandals'.

Well done Qantas! Now think about banning fat, tattooed women wearing skin tight leggings and Lycra tops.....:E

Qantas
 

Lots of bars in Australia seem to have a notice stating no thongs or singlets, in effect they do allow them but they can use it as an excuse to eject anyone being a nuisance. Maybe Qantas are adopting a similar stance, hope so or my wife will have to change her footware habit of a lifetime.....

I'll be passing through the Sydney lounge on Monday and will try to remember to ask them whether they'd have preferred me to wear crispy clean thongs instead of my smelly old Veldtschoen.
A little idle boasting never came amiss I'll be bound.

On the odd occasion mrs thing and I feel flush enough to travel business we make a bit of an effort. Chinos, a decent shirt and shoes for me and whatever the female equivalent is. We were boarding a SIA 380 recently and a guy turned off the boarding ramp into suites wearing cut off denim shorts, a vest (and I mean a vest, not a t-shirt) and a pair of flip flops...

I guess if you've bought the ticket then fair enough, probably I'm an old fart but doesn't anyone make an effort these days?

It does seem a bit 'sexist' though.

Ladies are allowed to wear thongs (flip flops) but men can't wear good quality leather thongs (flip flops)




coldair

In the days when I travelled regularly on ID fares I had to comply with some pretty strict dress codes. It was worth it because (in those good old days) non-rev would often be upgraded to Business or First. What I found amusing is that much of the time it was pretty easy to distinguish rev from non-rev as the non-rev were often the better dressed :) Now days I pay my own tickets in Business and I enjoy dressing casually, although not in vests or flip-flops I must stress.

@ HT.
Absolutely! You got funny looks from folks who had gone straight from the surf to the airport on flights out of HNL.
"What's with the suit, dude...?"

Qantas business lounge in Terminal 1 Sydney is as threadbare and mouldy as any Servisair lounge I've ever seen. First Class lounge is in a true class of its own and unspoilt by the rabble who infest the other, more egalitarian, lounges.
The story with the things, jandals or whatever, is that, apparently, you can wear them in international departure lounges but not in domestic departure lounges. The rule has been enforced specifically to stop miners and suchlike from ruining the decor even further than it already has been by the outside shirt and crumpled jeans brigade. These are the words as used by the charming young lady at the control zone desk. They have, of course, nothing to do with mine.

I'm trying to make the connection here ...