Hawaiian Pilots Lose Rare Beard Exception
Hawaiian Airlines pilots will lose a long-standing and strange allowance for beards as Alaska Air Group rolls out a mixed pilot uniform and look coverage following the carriers’ merger.
In an inside e mail dated March 23 seen by AirlineGeeks, Alaska System Chief Pilot Scott Day instructed pilots {that a} “significant” revision to the Flight Operations Manual can be launched on April 1, together with updates to the uniform and look coverage. He mentioned all Boeing 787 pilots would additionally start transitioning to the Alaska uniform on April 20.
Day additionally flagged what he described as a serious change within the assessment, writing: “Going forward, facial hair must meet specific requirements to ensure compliance with FAA guidance and flight deck safety and beards will not be authorized.”
A March 27 follow-up message to Hawaiian pilots from Dave Mets – the corporate’s vice chairman of flight operations – supplied extra element on the choice.
In that word, Mets acknowledged the importance of the change, writing, “I recognize this is an important issue for many and do not want to be insensitive or vague about it in any way.” He added: “I fully understand that this is a policy decision many of you do not and may never agree with.”
Regulatory Review
Mets mentioned the corporate had engaged with regulators a number of occasions over a number of years on the difficulty of beards and oxygen masks use, and mentioned cockpit oxygen masks producers have really useful towards beards within the flight deck. He wrote that the FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, or CAMI, had not too long ago “reaffirmed its long-standing recommendation that for safety reasons, beards should not be allowed on the flight deck.”
The firm’s choice comes whilst the difficulty stays contested past US airline coverage circles. The FAA advisory round typically cited in beard-related masks steering, AC 120-43, dates to 1987 and stays energetic. More current analysis has pointed in a unique course.
TO 2024 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University study discovered no proof that facial hair brought on masks leaks, hypoxia, or chemical publicity points in testing involving commercial-style oxygen masks. Earlier analysis from Simon Fraser University additionally discovered facial hair didn’t compromise masks efficiency in its research, work the college mentioned helped help Air Canada’s transfer to permit pilot beards.
He mentioned the airline additionally reviewed FAA laws, manufacturing specs, and placards as a part of a security danger evaluation tied to growth of the mixed coverage. According to Mets, that assessment concluded: “our safest and most compliant path forward was to prohibit beards in the flight deck in our combined uniform policy.”
Mets additionally tied the difficulty to a current real-world occasion, writing that “our own very recent experience with Alaska Flight 1282 demonstrated the seriousness of this topic as our pilots had to don their O2 masks due to the rapid decompression that occurred.”
The up to date Flight Operations Manual displays that change instantly. The revised look customary says a well-groomed mustache stays accredited, however “beards are not allowed.”
The transfer ends a coverage that had made Hawaiian one of many few US airlines to permit pilot beards. The broader difficulty has remained a degree of debate throughout the business.
‘Longstanding FAA Guidance’
In a press release to AirlineGeeks, Alaska mentioned: “Safety is our priority, and Alaska and Hawaiian’s policy to prohibit facial hair for pilots across our combined airline is based on longstanding FAA guidance, as well as our own studies over many years.”
The firm additionally sought to differentiate the beard choice from broader questions on Hawaiian’s id throughout the merged airline.
Mets wrote that Alaska management has “absolutely no desire or intention to diminish the way Hawaiian Airlines and/or Hawaiian culture is celebrated and respected within our combined company,” pointing to continued funding within the Hawaiian model, airport infrastructure, cabin upgrades, and different appearance-policy modifications, together with a extra relaxed tattoo customary.
The Air Line Pilots Association – which represents pilots at each carriers – couldn’t be instantly reached for touch upon the coverage change.
The two pilot teams are nonetheless represented individually inside ALPA and are at the moment negotiating a joint collective bargaining settlement. Under the union merger course of, their seniority lists can be built-in solely after that contract is ratified, with a single pilot group and grasp govt council to comply with.
