Agreeing with the Indian Airlines’s stand that cabin crew needed to keep their weight in check, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday upheld the air carrier’s policy of grounding its overweight cabin crew members—both airhostesses and male stewards.Hopes of a legal reprieve for the ‘overweight’ in-flight staffs were dashed as a Bench headed by Justice A K Sikri dismissed a bunch of petitions filed by five airhostesses, who were grounded for tipping the weight scale, saying there was nothing “arbitrary or unreasonable” behind the IA’s notion.“Grace and concessions are not the matters of a legal right. They are the matters of policy and we do not find any illegality,” noted the court in favour of the airline, which had sought to rationalise its policy on two factors - cut-throat competition and high-altitude emergencies.In May 2006, Indian Airlines had done away with the three-kg excess weight grace and decided to ground cabin crew found exceeding their ideal weight even by a kilogram. The “overweight” person were to be taken off flight duties and given 45 days to shape up, according to the airline’s circular on the matter.The move had invited the chagrin of the grounded airhostesses, who moved the court against the airline’s circular of withdrawing permissible overweight limit of three kg over and above the upper limit, as laid down for the cabin crew. Their first plea against the policy was dismissed by a Single Bench of Justice Rekha Sharma in June last and the “overweight” airhostesses were left with the thin choice of “either battle the bulge or face the axe”.The matter was then challenged before the Division Bench but the Bench, agreeing with the IA’s views, dismissed the petition. During the argument, Arvind Sharma, counsel for the airhostesses, had argued that there was no connection between weight and performance when one is medically fit and that the weight was not the criteria of fitness. However, justifying the aircarrier’s decision, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Gopal Subramanium appearing for the Airlines’ contended that every profession had its own fitness standards and the airhostesses were already in the know about the issue when they signed the contract. “It was clearly mentioned in their contract that their job could be terminated in case they put on weight above the permissible limit and they have just been grounded on a condition that they would be allowed to fly after losing weight,” the ASG argued.
