Hong Kong - Pilots on Hong Kong's second biggest airline have been stripped of their captain's hats in a move some cockpit crew Saturday warned might strip them of their professional prestige.

Other pilots at Dragonair, however, said they were delighted at not having the wear the peaked hats which they complained made them "look like South American generals."

Dragonair, which has 400 pilots and flies to cities across China and Asia, sent out a memo at the end of October instructing pilots to hand in their hats which would no longer be part of their uniform.

The airline indicated it was following a global trend for hat-less pilots and said it came after regular consultations with crew which indicated the head gear was no longer wanted.

One senior Dragonair pilot told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa: "Most of us are happy about it - but there are some who are worried it will give us less presence.

"The majority of airlines nowadays don't make their pilots wear hats. Even before this decision, only the pilots who wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing wore them. The rest of us just carried them under our arms."

Other pilots agreed, with one saying: "The hats are nothing but a joke and a leftover from the air force days. I personally hated going around looking like a South American general."

But some pilots fear that seeing cockpit crew without hats will have an effect on passenger confidence and make it harder for captains to command the respect of cabin crew and ground crew.

A debate is raging on a Hong Kong-based online forum for pilots with one writing: "Several studies over the years have suggested that airline crew in a hat give out more confidence to the travelling public.

"Passengers said they felt there was a certain amount of security in seeing a pilot in full uniform looking proud and polished. They felt it reflected the attention and care in his job which made them feel they were in safer hands."

Another opponent of the measure complained: "The dignity of our profession is being eroded ... Our uniform gives out a message to those thousands of people putting their lives in our hands."

A spokeswoman for Dragonair denied that pilots' hats had been given the chop to save money even though each hat costs an estimated 65 US dollars to supply.

"The decision was taken solely on the basis of practicality, and has been well received by pilots," she said.

A spokeswoman for Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's biggest airline, said it had no plans to follow Dragonair's example lead and remove the hats from its pilots. (dpa)