Cabin crew for Jeju Air can ditch the high heels

Jeju Air flight attendants pose for a group photo wearing low-heel shoes at Gimpo International Airport in western Seoul on Wednesday. [JEJU AIR]

Korea’s largest budget airline, Jeju Air, will now allow female flight attendants to wear shoes with lower heels when in uniform, the company announced on Thursday.

Female attendants had to wear shoes with five to seven centimeter (1.9 to 2.7 inch) heels when they were working in uniform outside of planes.

Once they boarded a plane, attendants wore shoes with low, three-centimeter heels for safety reasons.

Jeju Air has now decided to let attendants choose between shoes with high heels or lower heels when wearing their uniforms outside of planes.

The airline has been changing its service guidelines from earlier this year to reduce stress on flight attendants.

From April, the airline has let flight attendants wear glasses and have painted nails while serving on board.

While Jeju Air didn’t have official guidelines that prohibited attendants from wearing glasses, the industry norm was to wear contact lenses, so the airline decided to officially allow glasses.

The airline previously only allowed nails to be painted with one color, but now flight attendants can decorate their nails with a variety of colors. However, additional textured nail decorations are still prohibited as they could scratch customers, the airline said.

The uniform guidelines for flight attendants in Korea became a hot topic after employees of Korean Air’s budget airline Jin Air complained about their skinny jeans-based uniform.

The idea of wearing jeans as uniform was reportedly introduced by Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-min, who stepped down from all her positions at both Korean Air and Jin Air after throwing drinks at employees out of anger earlier this year. Jin Air is currently redesigning its uniforms.

BY KIM JEE-HEE [kim.jeehee@joongang.co.kr]