It's 6am and I'm sipping a flat white in Virgin Australia's Sydney Airport lounge. I'm here with a colleague who has lounge access and favours this carrier over the opposition, Qantas.
Our debate over which of these two local airlines deserves our patronage continues as we take off for Melbourne: Virgin is bright, polished and inexpensive; it has a sleek, modern lounge which serves great coffee, but it won't allow economy-class passengers a complimentary cup of tea; Qantas, with whom we travel back to Sydney the following day, trades on customers' patriotism while pandering to its shareholders, and has shamelessly moved jobs offshore; but it keeps its cabins largely commerce-free, ensuring that they aren't transformed into cheap food kiosks.
But there's another point of difference, one that interests me most, and that's the way in which each airline chooses to represent women. The differences are stark.
For all the things Qantas stands accused of — selling out its Australian employees, uncompetitive pricing, bad management — it appears to be respectful of women, both its employees and its customers. And women hoping to thrive need all the positive reinforcement they can get from corporations such as Qantas, whose public persona is reflected in equal measure by men and women.
On our flight home to Sydney, I point out to my colleague the even mix of male and female flight attendants and the wide disparity in their ages. Indeed, most of the female attendants appear to be over the age of 40, and while they are well-groomed there is nothing provocative about their attire.
They set a comfortable tone in the cabin, for there is no confusion as to their role: they are here to take care of our in-flight needs and guide us in case of trouble; it is not their job to titillate us, to enliven the space with their beauty and cleavage, to stroke the egos of male passengers.
A ticket on a Virgin flight, on the other hand, brings with it the allure of sex, the commodity on which the company's brand has been built. Youthful air hostesses wear fitted dresses, 'Virgin Girl' pin-ups decorate the noses of some aircraft, and the company's advertisements depict flight attendants as sexually alluring supplicants and male passengers