Fired for being overweight!

Air India sacks 130 flight attendants

For years, airlines have penalized luggage for weighing too much. Now at least one carrier is applying that same logic to its flight attendants.

Air India is grounding about 130 of its flight attendants — mostly women — because they are overweight, the company announced late last week.

The state-owned airline said the decision was based on safety concerns and recent government regulations, but critics said it was “ridiculous” and “shockingly sexist.”

The mass grounding is just the latest in a 10-year-long tug-of-war between the airline and its larger flight attendants.  In 2006, Air India grounded nine female flight attendants deemed “exceptionally overweight,” the BBC reported. The hostesses sued, but a Delhi court backed up the carrier in 2008.

“It is incredibly upsetting that working women are being targeted,” Sheila Joshi, a 51-year-old flight attendant with 27 years of experience, told the Times after the Supreme Court denied her demand to ban the weight limits. “This is not a modelling job; we are not working a catwalk.”

“Now, if you are just 10 grams over, it’s goodbye,” said Joshi, who managed to keep her job after slimming down to less than the 140-pound maximum allowed for her 5-foot-3-inch height