China's Hainan Airlines to ground 'overweight' female flight attendants

China-based Hainan Airlines has been facing criticism for its policy of suspending flight attendants if they are above a certain weight limit. The carrier has defended the move of imposing weight requirements after the report went viral on social media platforms.

State-run Global Times reported that Chinese airlines issued guidelines to its cabin crew earlier this month, which stated that if female flight attendants would exceed the "standard limit" by 10 per cent, they would be immediately grounded.

The guideline basically outlines specific weight control and body size standards for female flight attendants at different levels and is based on a formula, which calculated the limit considering the height of the flight attendants. The formula is — "height (cm) -110= standard weight (kg)".

As mentioned in the report, the flight attendants who were suspended would be put on a company-supervised "weight-reduction plan". The report referred to a statement, which read that if female flight attendants are less than fiveper centoverweight, their weight will be monitored on a monthly basis to prevent crew members from gaining weight.

Global Times also mentioned in its report that a civil aviation employee said that the weight requirement policy by Hainan Airlines for female flight attendants is unprecedented in the domestic aviation industry.

A legal expert was interviewed by the media regarding the matter and the person raised concerns over the weight requirements, stating that the move imposes additional labour obligations on employees without following proper legal procedures.

Watchhis report:

While responding to the same, Hainan Airlines confirmed to CNN on Monday that they used a "weight reference standard". However, it noted that the policy is applied to all flight attendants regardless of gender.

The airline also said the measure "cannot be interpreted as a simple criterion to suspend a flight attendant as some media did".

The airline said that the standard is "based on the standard human body weight reference and matched with the healthy weight range measurement for the crew".

It further added that the rules are used to evaluate and manage the crew's "health, physical shape and posture".

"This is intended to advocate healthy living habits and maintain a good professional image and healthy physique by anchoring the reference target, rather than passively waiting for individual crew members’ physique to change significantly and then affect safety service work," it added.

Global Times quoted an employee surnamed Huang, who has worked for the airline, told the media: "If airlines deprive overweight flight attendants of the right to work normally purely because of visual aesthetic considerations, this is definitely employment discrimination. The introduction and implementation of such regulations have no respect for flight attendants."

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