Gone are the days of slouching into the Qantas Club in your most comfy tracksuit. From April 1, the airline will enforce a minimum smart casual dress guideline in its major Australian lounges.
Anyone visiting Qantas Club or Qantas Business Lounges in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth or Adelaide airports will have to scrub up accordingly.
Entry may be refused 'at the discretion of the lounge staff' if visitors aren't up to scratch, yet Qantas insists it's a 'friendly reminder'.
'The vast majority of our members meet and exceed the guidelines, but we have had some feedback from customers that they want to see those guidelines apply to everyone,' a Qantas spokesperson told the
Australian Business Traveller website
.But there's a reflective silver lining for FIFO (fly-in-fly-out) workers and tradies on the move - high-viz vests are officially exempt from the dress code.
What does smart casual actually entail?
Certainly no singlets, bare feet or dirty thongs. Loud logo t-shirts and torn jeans are out, too. Think collars, chinos, and nothing too revealing.
'Smart casual does not mean slapping a blazer over a pair of jogging bottoms, so get that image out of your head right now,' says Luc Weisman, the editor of men's style blog D'Marge. 'When in doubt, the safe move is to err on the smarter side of the style spectrum.'
Fingers crossed the Qantas staff share your good taste. http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/business-travel/qantas-club-to-enforce-smarter-dress-code-20150212-13d2mg.html
When people have paid a premuim price to fly or through their frequent flyer status have access to an airline's lounge should they then be required to dress to a certain standard? Is this a reasonable expectation or just plain snobbery?
What do you think?
Image source
It is proposed that there should be no dress codes associated with airline lounges