Air India wants fit cabin crew

Are you currently employed as a flight attendant at Air India and are you slightly on the heavier side? It might be time to hit that treadmill! The airline is introducing new regulations for its employees: all cabin crew members over 40 must pass a medical test, including blood tests and an assessment of BMI and eyesight. Employees that are found to be too heavy to be able to guarantee ability to perform emergency operations will not be allowed to fly.

Gym membership for cabin crew

Most employees are very unhappy about the new regulations being introduced. According to the Times of India, some are even refusing to take the fitness tests, and have asked the airline to pay for their employees' gym memberships before they start threatening to ground people. Cabin crew members deemed unfit to fly will have 6 months to improve their health, facing major possible pay cuts while they are prohibited from flying.

Senior cabin crew members

Air India's cabin crew is one of the sky's more senior crews. Sixty to seventy percent of Air India's flight attendants are over 40 years of age. The state-owned airline has an age limit of 58 for cabin crew, where most other, privately held airlines in India employ mostly flight attendants in their twenties or early thirties. Rather than lowering the age limit, the carrier is opting to introduce stricter health regulations to ensure safe transportation of passengers.

We should think the ladies pictured below should have nothing to worry about (in terms of their BMI, anyway).