Air India to conduct pre-flight checks of cabin crew's grooming, Body Mass Index

Air India has decided to check grooming and measure the body mass index BMI of cabin crew members at the airports just before their flights according to an official orderThe carriers two unions Air India Employees Union AIEU and All India Cabin Crew Association AICCA on Monday wrote a letter to Chairman and Managing Director CMD Vikram Dev Dutt opposing the order on the grounds that it is dehumanising and in violation of rules prescribed by aviation regulator DGCABMI is a persons weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in metres A high BMI can indicate high body fatness stated the website of US Centers for Disease Control and PreventionThe order dated January 20 2022 has come days before Air Indias hand over to the Tata group which acquired the carrier in a competitive bidding process last yearCabin crew who are well dressed and well groomed according to uniform standards and regulations present a positive and professional image of the airline the order statedIt is therefore emphasized that all cabin crew adhere to uniform regulations communicated by the circular dated November 18 2019 the order notedThe January 20 order was sent by Vasudha Chandana Executive Director Inflight Services Air India to all cabin crew members in the carrierGrooming associates have been assigned the task of recording observations on the BMI managementgroominguniform turnout of cabin crew when they report for a flight or standby duty at CCMCO Cabin Crew Movement Control Office she noted These observations must be compiled and sent to her office she stated Each cabin crew shall be observed or assessed once on quarterly basis she notedHowever it will be the responsibility of the cabin supervisor of the flight to ensure that her or his set of crew are well turned out and follow complete uniform regulations she mentionedAll cabin supervisors must lead by example and ensure compliance by cabin crew at all times she statedAny noncompliance by a crew member must be noted in the report of the cabin supervisor she notedIn a letter to the CMD the aforementioned two unions said that as per DGCAs rules the BMI checks can be done only by medical practitionersThe unions said that such BMI checks at airports by nonmedical ldquogrooming associatesrdquo violates not only DGCA rules but also settled service conditions and court ordersWe must stipulate that we are not objecting to BMI checks which crew have undergone for more than 15 years now however the same must be conducted by medical doctors in the privacy of the Air India clinic as has been the case until now the unions notedThis process of weighing scale checks at airports dehumanizes and denigrates Air Indias cabin crew apart from violating working conditions they statedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever