Delta's 64,000 employees now have brand new designer uniforms

• Delta Air Lines introduced its new Zac Posen-designed and Lands' End-made uniforms worldwide on Tuesday
• The new threads will be worn by the airline's 64,000 uniformed employees.
• The design and testing process of the uniforms took more than three years.

---

Delta Air Lines employees received a brand new generation of uniforms on Tuesday. The Atlanta-based airline rolled out its new threads to all of its 64,000 uniformed employees around the world.

"We have the best employees in the business so we want to ensure they have the best uniforms in the business," the general manager of Delta's uniform program, Ekrem Dimbiloglu told Business Insider in an interview.

Gone are the navy blue uniforms that we have become accustomed to over the years. Instead, the airline's flight attendants and customer service agents will now sport the Passport Plum look created by famed fashion designer Zac Posen.

There are also four additional hues called Groundspeed Graphite, Cruising Cardinal, Traveling Thistle, and Skyline Slate.

The new uniforms are made by Lands' End.

This is the first redesign of Delta's flight attendant and customer service agent uniforms in a decade, Dimbiloglu said. The airline's ramp and technical operations staff haven't had a uniform revamp in near 20 years.

The airline's new threads have been more than three years in the making with Posen and his team. They even went as far as shadowing various employees through their work day to get a better idea of the requirement of each uniform.

"This entire process has been about making our employees look and feel the best because we know if you look and feel good in what you're wearing, you are going to provide even more exceptional service," Delta's uniform program director added.

"In addition, we made sure every employee's voice was heard and this was not a uniform Delta issued but a uniform that Delta's people were a part of."

This includes gathering information from 30,000 employee surveys and more than three months of wear testing on 1,000 Delta employees. Feedback from this process led to more than 170 design changes such as making pockets inside the new blazer deeper so pens fit better.

Over the past decade, employees at American Airlines and Alaska Airlines have reported a bevy of health problems after switching to new uniforms.

To head this off, Delta not only instituted more stringent wear testing but also conducted multiple audits of Lands' End's production facilities in the US and abroad. The airline even took its employees to the visit the Lands End factories, Dimbiloglu told us.