Call it a heavy defeat: ten air hostesses employed by Air India have been dismissed for being too fat to fly.

The state-owned carrier handed the staff their papers over Christmas after they failed to slim down to meet company weight restrictions, which are calculated according to height and age. The cabin crew members had been grounded for months after losing a landmark legal battle in June.

Sheila Joshi, 51, an Air India hostess with 27 years’ service who lodged an unsuccessful petition with the Indian High Court to declare the airline’s weight policy unconstitutional, said: “It is incredibly upsetting that working women are being targeted. This is not a modelling job; we are not working a catwalk.”

Mrs Joshi, who at 5ft 3in can weigh a maximum of 10st under Air India’s rules, went on a diet and managed to survive the cut by shedding 5lb when the airline tightened its rules two years ago. For those who lost the battle of the bulge, however, there was no leniency. “Now, if you are just ten grams over, it’s goodbye,” Mrs Joshi said. “It’s ridiculous: weight is not an infectious disease.”

The airline’s stance is likely to surprise many in India, a country with a rich history of voluptuous Bollywood sirens and labour laws that make dismissing public sector staff all but impossible. In October, after suffering massive losses in a dire market, Jet Airways, India’s largest private sector airline, shocked the nation by dismissing 1,900 hostesses. The next day, after staff protests, a public outcry and a threat from an extremist political party to ban its aircraft from Mumbai, the airline took them all back.

In June, the High Court deemed that employees’ physiques may be deemed integral to their “personality”. It dismissed claims that chubby-but-fit staff were as able to carry out their duties as their skinny colleagues. Spelling out the limits of the law, Justice A. K. Sikri and Justice J. R. Midha added: “There has been much debate about skinny bodies vis-à-vis healthy bodies, but there is no scope for any debate on overweight people.”

The ruling gave a boost to a new breed of Indian airline that aims to entice travellers with promises of svelte cabin crew members but is struggling to survive as passenger numbers plummet in India. The tactic has been embraced most by Vijay Mallya, the liquor tycoon who owns the upmarket airline Kingfisher and says that he vets each member of staff.

Mrs Joshi, who believes a hostess should be able to bank on a job for life, is unimpressed. “Kingfisher was founded four years ago. Its cabin crew are all in their twenties. Let’s see how much they weigh in 20 years,” she says.

Hairy hands? Forget it

— In the mid-1990s Air India tried to recruit Miss India finalists and pay them a higher salary than other crew members

— Air hostesses with Pakistan International Airlines are subjected to rigorous selection procedures. “Their skin quality, height and weight are noted in the first interview session,” said a spokesman in 2007. “We check whether they have hair on their hands and arms and if they do, they are not selected”

— The Indian Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that women Air India flight attendants should be allowed to fly until the age of 58, like their male counterparts. They had previously been forced to retire at 45

Sources: Times archives; www.dawn.com

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