Virgin Atlantic is changing their swimming policy for cabin crews.

My guess is that in order to be a member of an airline’s cabin crew, you need to know how to swim, just in case of an emergency.

When I saw a tweet from Richard Branson about Virgin Atlantic changing their swimming policy, I wondered if it would no long be required to know how to swim.

It turns out that this was not the case. The airline is making a change to help allow for more people to qualify for cabin crew positions.

Up until now a prerequisite to becoming a part of the cabin crew for Virgin Atlantic was  that you needed to be able to swim and be confident in the water. In the article, Branson mentions how he found out during a flight that this “was a real problem for many people, especially minority groups“.

Branson, looked into this issue, chatted with his team and decided to make some changes.

Screening questions for new cabin hires of the airline said that “It is a requirement for the role that all cabin crew are able to swim a minimum distance of 25 metres and tread water (both unaided) by the start of their training course.”

To help those who are unable to swim, Virgin Atlantic will provide various accredited swimming schools to help applicants learn to swim during the time of their interview and the start of their training.

Branson mentions how a swimming spreadsheet was created so they can check in with these candidates a week before training begins. Hopefully, the candidates will learn how to swim and then be able to get hired rather than just be turned down from the beginning.

This sounds like a brilliant solution. Nice job Richard Branson and Virgin Atlantic!

Find out more about these changes here.