Too fat to fly

Shape up or fly out. Literally. That’s the message the courts have sent out to the portly cabin crew of Indian Airlines, who have been grounded for being overweight. The chubby airhostesses are protesting against what they see as a brutally unfair judgement, one that goes against the natural shape of the Indian female.

The overweight airhostesses should do some introspection and thank their stars for the good run they’ve had till now, before private carriers emerged in India with new standards of professionalism. All international carriers have height and weight requirements of cabin crew. Some don’t hire hostesses above a certain age. The agile 20-somethings in tight short skirts and heels on private flights can hardly be held solely responsible for eating into Indian Airlines’ pie, but the realisation has dawned that shaping up, in every way, is a matter of commercial survival for the national carrier. Some of the hostesses on Indian Airlines and Air India have held their jobs since the ’80s, way before hostesses on some private airlines were even born! In the highly competitive business of aviation, if an airline doesn’t want a fat air hostess lumbering down a narrow aisle, can it be called discrimination?

No doubt, standards of slimness have changed drastically in the last decade. The buxom, rounded figure of the ’70s Bollywood actresses would be considered positively obese today. Twenty years ago being an airhostess in India was akin to being a filmstar. Through the history of commercial flights worldwide, female cabin crew are acknowledged to be pretty and glamorous. Yet, officials from Indian Airlines refuse to acknowledge cosmetic and aesthetic reasons for wanting slim cabin crew; instead, while fighting their case, they’ve come up with the lame excuse that weighty hostesses won’t be able to fight off a terrorist attack or other emergencies. The reality is that in some jobs, appearances count, unfortunately more in women than in men.

Airlines, reeling under the impact of escalating fuel costs, are coming up with innovative schemes to check ticket costs. The most recent one being contemplated is the less you weigh, the less you pay. Are the chubby crew listening?