China’s Kunming Airlines is promising to put an end to a years-long tradition of male flight cabin employees forcing their female colleagues into the overhead bins of planes in a odd hazing ritual alleged to have been occurring with the company’s consent.
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A Chinese airline has claimed its female cabin crew are happy to be loaded into aircraft overhead lockers by other staff. An online furore sparked accusations of bullying after photos emerged of what the company described as a celebratory ritual.
The airline’s statement backtracks on an earlier response it issued after receiving a torrent of online criticism following the publication of the images on a WeChat account named Civil Aviation Tabloid.
“The company attaches high importance to this incident and will prevent such things from happening again”, the statement, reported by the BBC, said. “But they were often stigmatized as “uncooperative” and “cocky”, said the post accompanying the photos on WeChat, the Straits Times reported.
These incidents have allegedly been going on for the past four or five years, The Shanghaiist added.
Apparently, flight attendants crawling into the bins on empty isn’t unheard of.
Here’s a handful of the photos shared on Instagram using the hashtag #overheadbin.. One woman who was forced into the “game” almost fell to the ground as several security staffers tried to lift her into the bin, the post alleges. Even a few passengers take the opportunity to try it out.
Many members of the bullied Kunming Airlines’ cabin crew were reportedly annoyed by the ritual, yet they still went through with it in fear of being edged out by colleagues, according to CCTV News.
For American Airlines passengers, as an example, the specifications are 56 cm in length by 36 cm in width and 23 centimetres in height.
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JetBlue’s website states the allowable dimensions for one carry-on bag must not exceed 55.88 cm in length, 35.56 cm in width and 22.86 cm in height.
