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Having had the same look for 13 years Dragonair felt it was timely to update its uniform, offering staff and customers a refreshing new look that is more aligned with its current corporate image and brand positioning.

A launch event was held this week hosted by Dragonair Chairman John Slosar and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Yeung, with the uniform’s designer, Mr Eddie Lau, also present.

Mr Yeung said: “As one of the world’s leading regional airlines, we constantly look for ways to enhance our products and services, and to expand our network and increase the choice we offer to our customers. We also invest a great deal of effort in strengthening our brand and boosting our corporate image.

The design of the new uniform puts a strong focus on the individuality and uniqueness of Dragonair’s service offering throughout the entire passenger journey, both on the ground and in the air. At the same time, it harmonises closely with the overall image of the Cathay Pacific Group.

The red and black colour tones of the female collection echo Dragonair’s brand image, with red representing youth and vitality, while the black element helps to project a classy, elegant and professional corporate image. The olive colour jacket and vest of the male uniform offer a fresh new outlook, while the design of the white shirt varies according to seniority.

Dragonair’s signature “dragon” logo is integrated into different parts of the new design logo in a wave movement.

Staff and passengers were also involved throughout the 18-month uniform development process. A series of staff surveys, consultations, prototype presentations, a wearer trial and focus groups with Marco Polo Club members were conducted to collect a wide variety of views and opinions before the design of the new uniform was finalised.

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Female flight attendants with South Korea’s Asiana Airlines on Tuesday won a long-running battle to overturn a skirts-only dress code after the national human rights commission ruled it discriminatory.

Starting from early next month, Asiana’s 3000-odd female flight attendants will be allowed to wear trousers for the first time since the company came into existence 25 years ago, an airline statement said.

The decision came after the national rights watchdog, responding to an appeal lodged by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, ruled the existing dress code was “gender discriminatory”.

Asiana has a 10-page dress code for female attendants, which covers everything from earring size to hair colour and eye make-up type.

Kweon Soo-Joung, the head of Asiana’s labour union, said she welcomed the company’s decision, but voiced concerns that some cabin staff would still feel pressure to avoid wearing trousers.

“There is a possibility that senior crew could negatively evaluate those who wear trousers in an internal performance report,” Kweon told Yonhap news agency.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/female-flight-attendants-overturn-skirtsonly-dress-code-20130327-2gtbj.html#ixzz2OoCaZ9c6

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Adult obesity rates in the UK have almost quadrupled in the last quarter of a century, with around 22 per cent of Britons now considered obese Photo: ALAMY

This week an academic in Norway proposed a “pay as you weigh” scheme that would see airlines charging overweight fliers more to help recoup the cost of the extra fuel required to carry them.

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Reuters) – To get its 787 Dreamliner flying again, Boeing Co is testing the plane’s volatile battery system to a rigorous standard that the company itself helped develop — but that it never used on the jet.

Boeing’s decision has thrust an arcane standard known as RTCA to the centre of the debate over whether Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were rigorous enough when they originally set standards for the 787 battery system in October 2007. The debate could have broad implications for the future use of lithium-ion batteries on aircraft.

A committee co-chaired by Boeing published safety guidelines in March 2008 for using lithium-ion batteries on aircraft to minimize the risk of fire. But because they arrived five months after the FAA had approved a set of special conditions for the fire safety of the Dreamliner battery system, Boeing did not have to meet the more stringent guidelines. The FAA never required it, and Boeing did not choose to use them.

Last week, Boeing decided to shift to the tougher RTCA standard for a revamped 787 battery system. The move came after regulators grounded Dreamliners worldwide in January following a battery fire on a Japan Airlines Co 787 at Boston’s Logan airport and a battery meltdown on an All Nippon Airways Co flight in Japan.

Some battery industry experts voiced surprise that Boeing did not apply the RTCA standard when it was published in 2008. Even though the tests were not required, they would have served as a check on Boeing’s design assumptions and possibly prevented the battery from overheating in January, they said.

John Goglia, a former board member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said he sees the use of the RTCA standard “as an admission that they didn’t do a good job in the beginning.”

“It is going to be part of the final NTSB report,” he added. “It will be at least mentioned in there.”

The NTSB last month questioned the assumptions Boeing and the FAA made when certifying the battery system in 2007. The safety agency plans to hold a hearing on the issue next month and is expected to recommend changes to FAA procedures after completing its investigation into the battery failures.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said Boeing didn’t use the RTCA standard earlier because it came “after we had completed our certification plans and begun our testing efforts.”

Under the special conditions, the Dreamliner passed “a rigorous test program and an extensive certification program conducted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration,” he said.

BOEING OPTIMISTIC

The RTCA test will be used on an extensive new battery system Boeing unveiled on Friday. It adds safeguards to prevent fire, keep fumes from entering the cabin and ensure the jet’s ability to fly and land are never compromised.

Boeing said it already is about one-third through testing with the tougher RTCA regimen, known as “DO-311″ and is likely to finish “within a week or two.

Asked why Boeing had not used the RTCA standard, a senior Boeing engineer on Friday suggested the standard was too broad.

The RTCA standard “covered a wide range of lithium-ion batteries and it contained roughly 104 requirements,” said Ron Hinderberger, vice president of 787-8 engineering. “Some of those requirements went beyond the requirements that were established in the special condition.”

The FAA did not respond to questions on why it did not apply the standard earlier or Boeing’s decision to use it now. The FAA adopted the standard in April 2011.

Richard Lukso, the former head of Securaplane Technologies, the Arizona company that supplied the charging unit for the 787 battery, said Boeing should have asked its battery subcontractor, GS Yuasa Corp of Japan, to use the RTCA standard. GS Yuasa declined to comment.

“It was (Boeing’s) responsibility to request that test,” Lukso said.

TOUGHER STANDARDS

The RTCA, formed in 1935 as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, is a private, not-for-profit industry group whose policy recommendations are often used by the FAA. Its battery committee — whose members included employees from Boeing’s battery maker GS Yuasa, the battery system maker Thales SA of France and the FAA — drafted a 68-page document to set “minimum operational performance standards” for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used as power sources on planes.

These guidelines “are generic in nature,” the committee said, “and serve only as a baseline for the design and test of specific battery systems and equipment pairings.”

The document included clearer and more specific tests than the FAA set, along with tougher standards. For example, the 787 special conditions say Boeing’s battery system must prevent “explosive or toxic gases” from accumulating in “hazardous quantities” in the airplane in any situation which is not “extremely remote.” In FAA parlance, “extremely remote” means once in 10 million flight hours.

But the DO-311 standards say the tests must show the chances are “extremely improbable” — FAA code for one in a billion flight hours.

Boeing’s tests, which included puncturing the battery with a nail and subjecting it to heat, predicted the chance of a fire was less than one in 10 million flight hours. But when the plane was in use, two batteries overheated and emitted smoke and fumes after less than 100,000 hours, according to the NTSB.

Lukso, who left SecuraPlane to start his own lithium-ion battery business, acknowledged that the RTCA standards are tough. At his new company, he spent $6 million (3 million pounds) and several years without successfully building a battery that could pass the test now in front of Boeing.

Another battery maker, EaglePicher Technologies, of Joplin, Missouri, passed tests modeled on DO-311, but used a less volatile chemistry than Boeing, known as lithium-iron phosphate.

“To successfully pass the containment (test), we needed iron phosphate,” Ron Nowlin, general manager of aerospace systems for EaglePicher, said in an interview earlier this year.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott and Peter Henderson; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Editing by Patricia Kranz and Tiffany Wu)

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