Airline to Hire Only Thin Female Flight Attendants to 'Save Fuel'

By Callie Beusman  |  July 1, 2013 | 3:15pm
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A good trick to keep people from scrutinizing your unseemly behavior is to respond, “In this economy?” in an incredulous voice. For instance: if someone comes into my apartment and says, “Your air conditioner is attached to your windowsill with duct tape and it looks extremely terrible,” I will reply, “Buying a screwdriver? In this economy?”

GoAir, an Indian airline, has apparently mastered this rhetorical device. GoAir is like, “Gender equity? In this economy?” The airline plans to recruit only female flight attendants from now on because women are, on average, 15-20 kilos lighter than men. Each kilo on board a plane costs $0.05 per flying hour; the airline estimates that their new policy will save them up to $500,000 annually. Thank goddess for the weightless frailty of women’s hollow bones.

A spokesman for GoAir insisted to CNN that the company had not implemented a gender-based recruitment policy and then confirmed “that GoAir would be seeking to adjust [its gender] ratio to be in line with the industry norm for 30 men to 70 women.” Its current male:female cabin crew ratio is 40:60. Oh, okay.

According to the airline’s CEO Giorgio De Roni, other weight-reduction techniques are also being put in place: the portable water tanks are no longer being filled to capacity, wingtip devices will be installed to reduce fuel burn, and the size of inflight magazines have been reduced. GoAir is like, “In this economy, we like our women like we like our inflight magazines: the width of a single piece of paper.”

But while it’s logical to partially empty out a water tank, or to limit the weight of each passenger’s carry-on luggage — or to make any decision that requires that less heavy inanimate objects are brought on board an aircraft, really — there are certain expenses built in to the operation of an an airplane. One of those costs is having human employees on board. Human beings, incidentally, come in all different sizes (and at least two genders!), and it’s not justifiable, nor is it right, to refuse to hire them if they aren’t petite females.

“GoAir opts for female crew to save fuel” [Times of India]
Image via Getty.

 
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