According to the Times of India, some air hostesses protested in 2013 that Air India should offer free gym memberships, as they said the firm had done some 15 years earlier, before testing their BMI and blood pressure.
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India’s state-owned airline has grounded 125 staff, saying their weight has rendered them unfit to fly.
Cabin crews’ weight has always been an issue in civil aviation in India.
By the DGCA norms, a BMI of 18-25 is normal for a male cabin crew member, while for a female, it is 18-22. There is also significant debate about the value of using BMI, or “body mass index”, to determine whether or not someone is overweight. Now, the airline is taking action, displacing flight attendants whose BMI exceeds 22.
It’s clear that Air India cares a lot about appearances, but only time will tell whether the sight of an empty cabin (devoid of all the people they discriminate against) will encourage the airline to change its ways.
Air India spokesman G.P. Rao told CNN the move was because of a safety issue.
The airline had warned 600 of its crew to “shape up” previous year, but 125 had not managed to maintain the required weight, the official said. As per the DGCA procedure, if a cabin crew member is found overweight he or she is considered “temporarily unfit” and given three months to reduce weight. Instead, they asked the airline to first pay for gym memberships before conducting any lab tests, the report said. Their reasoning is that a fitter person will be able to respond quicker and more efficiently in case of any untoward incident. Qingdao’s female flight attendants must be younger than 30, weigh in between 110 and about 190 pounds and be no taller than about five and a half feet. “So, this guideline and the management’s decision to follow it to the letter is unacceptable”.
An industry insider said the private domestic airlines are unlikely to have been affected by the BMI circular because their cabin crew tend to be younger.
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“Looks matter in this line of work”, personnel manager Meenakshi Dua told the BBC in 2004, “and therefore we are giving it a lot of importance”.
