Air India to ground 130 crew members as airline refuses to relax weight rules

Air India, which has long been struggling to shape up its performance, has decided that 130 of its flight attendants who were identified as overweight and failed to get in shape despite repeated warning will have to be grounded. Most of these 'overweight' cabin crew members are women. The DGCA has turned down a proposal by the airline to retain "overweight" cabin crew. The DGCA has said that weight norms cannot be rolled back because they have been prescribed on "technical and efficiency grounds". Air India now wants to either ground the cabin crew members who do not meet the weight standards or ask them to opt for voluntary retirement. In May 2014, the DGCA issued a circular directing all domestic airlines, giving them an 18-month deadline, to classify flight attendants as "normal", "overweight" or "obese". <br/>