You’ve got to hand it to airlines: They sure do come up with the most offensively creative ways to pinch pennies. Last year, Samoa Air became the first airline to charge passengers based on their weight. Now, Indian airline GoAir has decided to hire fewer men and more slim women to save money on fuel. Their reasoning: female flight attendants -- those little wisps of things -- weigh 15 to 20 kilos (33 to 44 pounds) less than their male counterparts.
GoAir reports that every extra kilo costs them five cents more per in-flight hour. They estimate that the new policy will save them $500,000 annually.
According to the airline's CEO Giorgio De Roni, they will also be instituting other cost-saving measures such as shrinking the size of the in-flight magazine and not filling potable water tanks to capacity. Clean drinking water -- who needs it?
To be fair, times are tough for airlines, and since they’ve already exhausted every possible way to screw passengers out of their last dollar, well, how else are they supposed to earn a buck? Should we really expect them to offer equal employment opportunities when their bottom line is at stake?
And not to worry: current GoAir employees’ jobs aren’t at-risk; the new policy will only affect new hires going forward. Well, thank goodness for that. And I’m totally sure that there won’t be any pressure whatsoever on flight attendants to slim down should they happen to put on a few pounds.
I guess when GoAir was crafting its business model it forgot to take into account the weight of human employees. Perhaps some day -- fingers crossed -- they’ll be able to automate everything so that us pesky humans -- large or small -- will no longer be such a burden.
