Abercrombie & Fitch Co
Employees working on the company’s Gulfstream jet must greet Mr. Jeffries and his guests wearing the uniform of an Abercrombie polo shirt, jeans, flip flops, boxer briefs and a “spritz” of the company’s cologne; provide copies of several magazines (inserts removed); and respond to requests by saying, “No problem,” rather than “Sure,” or “Just a minute,” according to a manual that was submitted in an age-discrimination lawsuit brought against the company by a former pilot.
The document meticulously describes where Mr. Jeffries’s dogs should sit (“When Ruby and Trouble travel, Ruby will sit opposite Michael in the cabin”); instructs employees how to vacuum the aircraft (“from the front of the aircraft to the back, pulling the vacuum toward you to make smooth, even lines”); and directs how to make the beds (“iron the exposed top sheets”) and what snacks to provide (“prepare a bowl of pretzels, and one of Squirrel Nuts”).
The emergence of the document comes at a rough time for Mr. Jeffries. Shares of Abercrombie are trading at half what they were a year ago as same-store sales decline. Shares on Friday fell 1.36 percent to $32.01 in step with a broad market sell-off and one day after Bloomberg News reported on the lawsuit.
Mr. Jeffries is widely credited with turning the staid Abercrombie brand into a sexy, cool, must-wear fashion on college campuses across the country in the late 1990s.
But along the way, Mr. Jeffries has attracted more than his share of controversy, including a recall of catalogs in the 1990s over images that critics say promoted binge drinking and a call for a consumer boycott in 2004 from the head of USA Gymnastics over a T-shirt that said “L is for Loser,” next to a picture of a gymnast. That same year, Abercrombie agreed to pay $40 million to black, Hispanic and Asian employees and job applicants to settle a class-action federal discrimination lawsuit that accused the clothing retailer of promoting whites at the expense of minorities.
The aircraft manual is part of a lawsuit filed in 2010 by Michael Stephen Bustin, who piloted the company’s corporate jet from February 2008 until he was terminated in December 2009. Mr. Bustin, who is now 55, claims he was let go so that the company could hire younger pilots more in step with its corporate image. Abercrombie denied the allegations in its court filings, saying Mr. Bustin had been employed by a jet aviation company, not Abercrombie.
A message left on Abercrombie & Fitch’s investor relations voice mail was not returned, nor were a call and e-mail sent to the company’s lawyers. Neither did Mr. Bustin’s lawyer respond to a call and e-mail.
After some shareholders raised questions about his unlimited personal use of the company jet, Mr. Jeffries received a lump-sum payment of $4 million two years ago to limit that use.
But when Mr. Jeffries traveled on the company jet, he expected to do it in style.
According to the manual, employees had to look for fingerprints on the cabinet doors of the aircraft lavatory, make sure the bar of Jo Malone soap on the vanity did not slide out of place during takeoff, provide eight tri-folded washcloths, and make sure that toilet paper was not visible and that the end square was not folded.
I thought all pilots knew these things?, perhaps I need to rewrite the line indoc particulars to include a scotch tasting. 
