Heavy birds grounded by airline

A High Court has told sacked air hostesses that Air India was right to fire them for being too fat.

Five Air India employees had taken their case to High Court after Air India had suspended staff who weighed more than 3kg over their maximum weight allowance.

The airline had brought in the rule two years ago after realising over 10% of its cabin crew were overweight.

Staff guidelines recommended choice weights according to height and age, with a five foot 18-year-old allowed to be a tiny 50kg (just under eight stone). A five-footer aged 26-30 is allowed a generous (ha!) 56kg (just under nine stone).

Staff argued that being overweight did not prevent them from carrying out duties and claimed the suspensions were illegal.

“There is no connection between weight and performance of duty when one is medically fit,” said their lawyer, Arvind Sharma.

However the lawyers for the airline argued that the suspensions were justified: “It was clearly mentioned in their contract that their job could be terminated if 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,” said lawyer Gopal Subramanium.

The High Court came down on the side of the airline, accepting that the “strenuous” duties the hostesses would need to carry out required them to be physically fit.

“Air crew have to be athletic to deal with any emergency and for that have to be in good shape. That is the reason that not only maximum but minimum weight limits are prescribed,” the court said.

Source: The Scotsman