New Delhi: It is now official that Air India cabin crew are unfit as medical examinations, pending for five years, reveal that to begin with, one in every four flight attendants is overweight. Though opposed by unions fiercely for obvious reasons, a lot of life-threatening ailments, including cases of cancerous growth, heart diseases, in addition to cholesterol and diabetes, were also detected in many that most employees got to know for the first time.
Half of about 4,000 flight attendants at the national carrier are above 40 years of age, who were the first ones that the airline prioritised for a medical check up, starting January.
"We had two things in mind when we started this exercise: weight and general fitness. Though cabin crew treated it as punitive action, we think it has been a blessing in disguise for many," a senior AI executive told ET. According to the official, close to 20% of the 1,500 cabin crew examined so far were detected with diabetes, hypertension and cholestrol, a few people were in immediate need of angioplasty, while nine were detected having early stages and hence curable malignancy and breast cancer.
19/04/13 Anindya Upadhyay/Economic Times
