Air India grounds 25 obese staffers

Mumbai: Air India has grounded 25 of its female cabin crew members for being ‘obese’. The national carrier’s chairman and managing director (CMD) Ashwani Lohani who chaired an internal meeting, in June this year, told 110 crew members, who were ‘overweight’, to maintain their body mass index (BMI) by the standards prescribed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) within six months’ time.

The aviation regulator’s guidelines state that ideal BMI for a woman cabin crew member should be between 18 to 22, while for males it is between 18 and 25.

As per reports, of the 110 ‘overweight’ Air India crew members, 60 were found to be ‘obese’. Twenty five of the obese crew members — all women — from all over the country have now been grounded, meaning that they are debarred from flying and are being given ground staff duty. Speaking about his decision, Mr Lohani said, “We are being more strict about the crew members’ BMI, as they had been given time to achieve the required BMI.”

With the shortage of around 1,800 crew members, we have recruited 300 crew members and are in process of hiring 300 more people for cabin crew.”

The airline in 2015 decided to ground 125 of its crew members due to the same issue, but had to revoke its decision owing to staff crunch. The airline’s medical services department had, in 2015, written to the DGCA asking it to relax the norms.  

The DGCA on May 2 2014 had issued guidelines on the ideal BMI for male and female staffers. According to these guidelines, an overweight person is to be declared temporarily unfit and is removed from flight duty. They would, however, continue to be employed as ground staff. If they remain overweight even after 18 months, they are to be declared permanently unfit and terminated from service.