Chinese carrier Hunan Airlines has soared in popularity on domestic social media by announcing that it is scrapping requirements for its female flight attendants to wear high heels.

The decision — which the company said was taken to protect its “professional image, cabin safety, and employees’ health” — has sparked an outpouring of support and calls for more Chinese airlines to follow their lead.

Many Chinese airlines maintain strict rules regarding flight attendants’ physical appearance, with guidelines covering not only staff members’ uniforms and shoes but also their makeup, hair, and in some cases even their weight. But some companies have begun to gradually relax these requirements in recent years.

Hunan Airlines previously required female flight attendants to wear high heels before and after flights, but allowed them to change into flats while inside the aircraft for safety reasons. Now, staff will be allowed to wear flat shoes any time while working.

The announcement, originally made on Monday, had garnered over 54 million views on microblogging platform Weibo by Friday, with an overwhelming majority of commenters praising the move. One survey run by a domestic media outlet found that nearly 85% of 2,400 respondents were in favor of the decision.

“High heels are shackles for the feet!” read one highly upvoted comment on Weibo.

Some commenters called on competitors to follow Hunan Airlines’ example, while others said airlines should go further in loosening female flight attendants’ dress codes, such as by scrapping requirements that they wear tight-fitting pencil skirts.

“Since it’s not necessary to wear high heels anymore, let’s also change the uniform. Comfortable pants are more practical for a flight attendant’s daily work than a pencil skirt,” one user wrote.

Medical experts also praised Hunan Airlines’ decision, with one doctor from Peking University People’s Hospital telling domestic media that wearing high heels for long periods can harm the soles and toes of the feet and increase the risk of injuries to the knees, pelvis, and ankles.

Despite this, several Chinese airlines continue to insist on female attendants wearing high-heeled shoes. Zhou Xu, a 34-year-old who has worked as a flight attendant at a major domestic airline for 10 years, told Sixth Tone that she is required to wear shoes with 5-centimeter heels for at least four hours each shift.

Female attendants at Zhou’s company have to wear heels while walking through the airport terminal, during boarding, and while conducting safety checks, Zhou said. They can change into flats before takeoff, but must change back into heels after landing.

“If we could choose, we definitely wouldn’t choose to wear high heels,” Zhou said. “Flat shoes are more convenient.”

Zhou said wearing heels while working was not only tiring but could also be unsafe, especially when staff have to board and disembark aircraft via steep, narrow airstairs. “Some colleagues have gotten their heels stuck between gaps in the stairs,” she said. “Every year, there are one or two cases of female staff falling down the stairs.”

Shoes are only part of the dress code, Zhou said. Female staff at her company also have to follow detailed guidelines regarding their hair, nails, and even what shade of lipstick they use. While she understood the need for companies to maintain an image of professionalism, Zhou said she found some of these rules unnecessary.

Chinese airlines have been facing growing public pressure to change their policies in recent years. When Hainan Airlines was found to have required flight attendants to maintain a set height-to-weight ratio in 2023, the company faced severe backlash despite its claims that the policy was only designed to ensure its staff remained “healthy.”

Hunan Airlines is not the only domestic company to relax its high heels mandate. Staff from Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines told domestic media that cabin crew were now allowed to wear flats during boarding.

Zhou said her employer previously required female attendants to wear traditional cheongsam, or qipao, dresses, but switched to a skirt suit in 2019. The new uniform is an improvement, Zhou said, but still far from ideal.

“In an emergency situation, passengers need to be evacuated within 90 seconds,” she said. “The skirt will more or less impact our freedom of movement.”

It remains to be seen whether the support Hunan Airlines has received this week will convince other airlines to introduce similar measures. Zhou lives in hope.

“Our company will likely continue keeping an eye on how other companies respond,” she said. “If more than one-third or half of the airlines get rid of (their rules regarding high heels), our company might follow. I’m very much looking forward to it.”

(Header image: Left: Hunan Airlines flight attendants wearing flats board a flight; right: A photo shows flight attendants wearing high-heeled shoes in China. From Weibo)