Air India to staff: You're overweight, you can't fly!

January 20,2017:

Doing ground job means loss of the flying allowance of Rs. 35,000 to 50,000 pm.

Air India has grounded 57 members of cabin crew, mostly air hostesses, prime reason behind this move is being overweight.

Until & unless these crew members get back in shape quickly, they'll be assigned ground jobs permanently.

These crew members had a higher than permitted BMI (body mass index), i.e. the ratio of weight & height of an individual. They were asked to lose weight and have been given deadlines.

Assigning of a ground job means loss of the flying allowance which is between ₹35,000 & ₹50,000 per month.

Overweight cabin crew have been declared temporarily unfit next for 6 months and if they don't meet the BMI requirements in next eighteen months, they'll be termed permanently unfit.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had more than 2 years ago introduced very strict requirements for cabin crew's vision, weight & hearing.

According to the DGCA guidelines, ideal BMI for a male cabin crew is 18-25 while it is 18-22 for female crew members. Those with BMI of 25-29.9 & 22-27 are seen as overweight & those with 30 and 27 BMI are obese.

An Air India officer said that most of the cabin crew who've been taken off flying duties had BMI over 30.