Air India to ground overweight crew
Of the 600 cabin staff, 125 failed to maintain BMI
New Delhi: Air India may consider grounding about 125 cabin crew, including air-hostesses, for their failure to maintain weight requirements as prescribed by aviation regulator DGCA, according to a PTI report.
Some of them may be assigned ground duty, while others may be offered voluntary retirement. Air India sources were cited as saying that the national carrier had given an opportunity to around 600 “overweight” cabin crew members last year to “shape up” within a stipulated time-frame to continue flight duty following DGCA’s guidelines to ensure that no overweight or obese person continues as a flight steward or an air-hostess.
“Of these 600 cabin staff, around 125, including air-hostesses, have failed to maintain the required body mass index (BMI) or weight standards in the prescribed period. Now we have no option but to take them off permanently from flying duty,” sources were quoted by PTI as saying.
The state-run airline currently has 3,500 cabin crew staff, of whom 2,200 are permanent employees and the rest on contract.
‘Unfit given 3 months’
As per the DGCA’s regulations, a BMI of 18-25 is normal for a male cabin crew, while for a female it is 18-22.
A BMI of 25-29.9 for male crew is considered overweight and 30 and above is obese, while for women crew a BMI of 22-27 is overweight and 27 and above obese.
Based on periodic medical reports, the cabin crew would have to be categorised by designated doctors as “fit”, “temporarily unfit” and “permanently unfit”, according to the guidelines.
As per the norms, a cabin crew member found overweight is deemed “temporarily unfit” and given three months to reduce weight.
A cabin crew can continue with flying duty for up to 19 months with the temporarily unfit tag, but if he or she fails to reduce weight to meet the required BMI during this period, he or she will be deemed “permanently unfit”.
“These employees have already availed 18 months’ time to meet the required BMI but failed to do so, leaving us with no choice but to replace them,” sources said.