Too fat to fly: 130 air hostesses may finally be grounded
FollowAt least 130 'overweight' Air India air hostesses, who failed to get in shape despite warnings, will either be axed or will be asked to take voluntary retirement.
Two years ago, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had identified 130 Air India hostesses as overweight and were repeatedly asked to get in shape. However, now if Air India goes by the DGCA regulations, they will have to leave the service.
According to a report in The Telegraph, the DGCA has rejected a petetion by Air India asking for the overweight' cabin crew to be allowed to continue their service. The DGCA reportedly has replied back saying that the weight norms has been put in place on 'technical and efficiency grounds' and hence it will not be revoked.
"The option before us now is either to ground the cabin crew members falling short of the weight standards or to ask them to opt for voluntary retirement," a senior official in the personnel department of Air India told The Telegraph.
In a May 2014 circular, the DGCA had issued a circular asking all domestic airlines to classify flight attendants as 'normal', 'overweight' or 'obese' according to the body mass index (BMI) and ensure that only the 'fitter' members were assigned aircraft duty.
BMI is a measure of body fat, calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of his/her height in metres.
According to the circular, a female attendant is considered 'normal' if she had a BMI between 18 and 22, 'overweight' if it was between 22 and 27 and 'obese' if it was higher than 27. For men, a BMI between 18 and 25 would be 'normal', between 25 and 29.9 'overweight' and above 30 'obese'.
The DGCA had given airlines an 18-month deadline to comply with these norms, arguing that fitness levels of cabin crew were directly linked to their speed and agility, and thereby to passenger safety during emergencies.
Air India had then asked some 600 flight attendants to shape up but about 130 had failed to get their BMI down to prescribed levels. The carrier has a total cabin crew strength of about 3,500.
