14 DAY TRIAL // Guidelines established by India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation state that, to be fit for the job, lady flight attendants must have a body mass index (BMI) between 18 to 22. For men, a BMI of 18 to 25 will do just fine.
Plainly put, overweight and obese people cannot hope to be members of a cabin crew.
Officials with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation say that these guidelines were established because, due to their physique, fat flight attendants cannot react quite as effectively and swiftly as they should in emergency situations.
Mind you, they really stick to these guidelines
Word has it that, just the other day, Air India announced plans to ground as many as 125 flight attendants because they are too fat for their job.
Apparently, these folks' BMI is a clear violation of the standards imposed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, and so they have no business being part of a cabin crew.
Now that they've been officially labeled overweight or obese by Air India, they cannot hope to return to flying even if they find it in their hearts to diet and slim down.
This is because the Indian airline made sure to declare then “permanently unfit” for the job and even found them stationary posts where their weight would not be an issue.
To be fair, they were warned to lose weight
According to Mirror, it was back in 2014 that Air India weighed all of its flight attendants and found that about 600 of them were a tad too plump for their job.
The crew were given a few months to get in shape or risk being confined to stationary posts. Some complied and managed to shake off the excess weight.
The 125 Air India has now taken action against, however, failed to lose enough weight for their BMI to fall within the limits established by the country's Directorate General of Civil Aviation.