January 20, 2017 TnH Global

Air India puts 57 ‘overweight’ crew on ground duty

Air India has grounded 57 cabin crew members, mostly air hostesses, for being overweight. Unless these crew members can get back in shape quickly, they will be assigned ground jobs permanently .

“These crew members had a higher-than-permitted body mass index (BMI, the ratio of weight and height of an individual). They were asked to lose weight and given deadlines. When they could not do so, they were assigned ground jobs last month,“ said a senior Air India official. A ground job means loss of flying allowance -between Rs 35,000 and Rs 50,000 a month.

Overweight cabin crew are declared temporarily unfit for six months. And if they do not meet the BMI requirements in 18 months, they are termed permanently unfit. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had more than two years ago introduced strict requirements for cabin crew’s weight, vision and hearing.

According to DGCA guidelines, the ideal BMI for a male cabin crew is 18-25 while it is 1822 for female crew. Those with BMI of 25-29.9 and 22-27 are seen as overweightwhile those with 30 and 27 BMI are obese.“Most of the cabin crew we have taken off flying duties had BMI over 30,“ said an AI officer.

“A cabin crew member who is found to be overweight (based on BMI), shall be examined…The crew shall be given three months to reduce weight to acceptable levels, failing which the cabin crew would be declared `temporarily unfit’ for cabin crew duties,“ the rule says.

“A cabin crew member who is found to be obese shall be examined and investigated. They shall be declared `temporarily unfit’ for cabin crew duties for a period of six months. After the six months…they will be re-assessed. If their BMI is in the normal range and the investigations are also normal, they can be declared `fit’ for duties,“ the civil aviation requirement says.

News Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com