Container Top
Homes   Jobs   Cars   Shopping
Search

Events Calendar

EVENT SEARCH:

In This Section


Most Read Stories


Blogs:


Pets:
Cat-loving chihuahua suckles seven abandoned kittens

The Heldenfiles:
Sunday Notebook

Patrick McManamon:
Browns sick after sick loss in Detroit

Akron Zips:
Zips advance to Sweet Sixteen

Tribe Matters:
Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster

Cleveland Browns:
Post-game defensive quotes

Kent State Sports:
Kent State defeats Rochester College, 63-44

Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers

Buckeye Blogging:
OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad

Varsity Letters:
Four area football teams play tonight

All Da King's Men:
The Sunday Sanity Challenge

Blog of Mass Destruction:
Will Health Care Reform Pass?

Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (69) The Brookings Institute Study on "Bending the Curve" – Four General Strategies

See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic

Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED

Let's Talk Real Estate:
Faye Dunaway to be Evicted?

Ohio Travels with Betty:
George is looking for a Thanksgiving buffet in Akron.

Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall

HRLite House:
Personal Rant – You are All Wrong About Jobs, or the Lack of Jobs, Being the Reason People Do Not Live in NEO

Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go

Indian airline fires 9 overweight crew members

By Associated Press

NEW DELHI: Nine flight attendants who couldn't meet the weight standards of India's national airlines have been fired, an official said today.

The crew were significantly overweight and had been given time to lose weight but had not, said Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava. He declined to give details on their weight.

A lawyer for the women blasted the firing. ''The action is illegal and against the natural justice. I will soon file an application in the Supreme Court against the order,'' Arvind Sharma told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Air India has spent years fighting for the right to fire cabin staff it considers physically unfit. In 2006, it warned its nearly 1,600 cabin crew workers to shape up in two months or risk being assigned to ground duties — jobs that often pay less than those in the cabin. When the airline reassigned employees it deemed overweight, some of them took it to court.

Last year an Indian court ruled in favor of the airline, paving the way for the firings earlier this week.

The airline said that fitness and efficiency were the reasons for its weight standards, which it said were based on ''scientific'' combinations of height, age and gender. It did not give further details about how such standards were determined.

While all the cabin crew fired this week were women, Bhargava said there was ''no gender bias. The rules are the same for both men and women.''

India has laws aimed to protect against discrimination based on factors including caste, gender and religion, but no specific ones about weight.

Air India has tried in the past few years to change a public perception of its cabin staff as tired, unfriendly and inefficient.

India's airline industry has grown dramatically in recent years as rising incomes and loosened regulations put air travel within the reach of millions of new customers — and increasing pressure on Air India to remain competitive.

NEW DELHI: Nine flight attendants who couldn't meet the weight standards of India's national airlines have been fired, an official said today.

The crew were significantly overweight and had been given time to lose weight but had not, said Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava. He declined to give details on their weight.

A lawyer for the women blasted the firing. ''The action is illegal and against the natural justice. I will soon file an application in the Supreme Court against the order,'' Arvind Sharma told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Air India has spent years fighting for the right to fire cabin staff it considers physically unfit. In 2006, it warned its nearly 1,600 cabin crew workers to shape up in two months or risk being assigned to ground duties — jobs that often pay less than those in the cabin. When the airline reassigned employees it deemed overweight, some of them took it to court.

Last year an Indian court ruled in favor of the airline, paving the way for the firings earlier this week.

The airline said that fitness and efficiency were the reasons for its weight standards, which it said were based on ''scientific'' combinations of height, age and gender. It did not give further details about how such standards were determined.

While all the cabin crew fired this week were women, Bhargava said there was ''no gender bias. The rules are the same for both men and women.''

India has laws aimed to protect against discrimination based on factors including caste, gender and religion, but no specific ones about weight.

Air India has tried in the past few years to change a public perception of its cabin staff as tired, unfriendly and inefficient.

India's airline industry has grown dramatically in recent years as rising incomes and loosened regulations put air travel within the reach of millions of new customers — and increasing pressure on Air India to remain competitive.



Story tools

Email  Email   Print  Print   Save  Save   Reprint  Reprint   Popular  Most Popular   Reprint  Subscribe

Share this story

AddThis Social Bookmark Button
















Most Commented Stories