Got it maid, or an airline's flight of fancy?

A Chinese budget carrier is planning to dress its female flight attendants as maids and their male colleagues as butlers on some flights, a move that has attracted both praise and criticism online.

Spring Airlines said it would be the first domestic airline to have crew members dressed in such a fashion.

Passengers on some flights from Shanghai's Hongqiao International Airport this week will be the first to experience the new look. "Spring Airlines plans to launch several themed flights to attract passengers this year and the maid costume flights will be the first," said a spokesman.

Online reaction was swift. The airline should be attracting passengers by making sure flights were on time, offering cheaper tickets and improving services, netizens said, rather than this "excessive way" of gaining public attention.

One microblogger wrote: "The airline should respect their crew members because flight attendants are still quite different from maids and butlers." He said it would be more acceptable for the airline to ask crew members to wear Chinese formal wear, such as traditional Tang outfits.

Concern was also voiced over whether the costumes could affect service and even pose safety risks when the airline released a picture of the new "uniforms" with the women wearing short skirts and high heels and their hair left loose and not tied back like attendants on other airlines.

The Spring Airlines spokesman said the male crew members who would be dressed as butlers would include the pilots, with their outfit featuring a long black apron as well as a tie.

However, there was some support for the airline's plan.

A microblogger who said he was a businessman in Shanghai and a frequent flier said the measure should be accepted because there were many "Maid Cafeterias" in Japan, some of which had become popular tourist attractions.

The Spring Airlines spokesman said it was just one of several measures being taken to improve services for passengers which would include new menus and more business class seats.

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