Cardin Skirts Replace Trousers : Air China Takes to Skies as New National Carrier

Flight attendants aboard China’s new airline changed their demure trousers for Pierre Cardin-designed skirts today as Beijing launched a new national carrier with a glittering ceremony in the Great Hall of the People.

“We still face limited capacity, we need to upgrade quality all through the company,” said Xu Bailing, president of the new flag carrier Air China that replaces the airline run by the much-maligned Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The founding of the new airline follows the partial dismantling of CAAC, which will remain as a government agency and retain its power to supervise the industry, oversee aviation regulations and negotiate air routes, said airline spokesman Ye Dongchang.

“Air China will be more competitive . . . and will be an enterprise,” Ye said. “CAAC, as part of the government administration, will have no power to interfere.”

The birth of Air China as a business and the country’s new national carrier was timed to coincide with the 67th anniversary today of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and was marked by a launching ceremony in the ornate Great Hall of the People.

Air China flight attendants took to the skies on its first day of operation dressed in new, knee-length pale blue uniforms designed by Cardin, the French couturier. For years the women had worn demure, blue nylon trousers to uphold puritan socialist principles.

The new airline’s logo--a stylized phoenix--represents “good luck and happiness to our passengers,” Ye said.