New Delhi, Sept 28: An epitome of beauty, she is full of grace, radiates warmth and keeps you comfortable in every way. She is indeed Air-India’s hostess—which distinguishes her from her counterparts in other jobs...She is intelligent, committed, enthusiastic and creative.’’— from www.airindia.com
What Air-India doesn’t say is what she’s up against—a system that, air-hostesses say, in any other industry would be considered discriminatory.

This week, the Supreme Court dismissed their review petition asking for a ‘‘gender-neutral’’ retirement age. Currently, air-hostesses in Air-India have to retire at 50, their male colleagues at 58.
But this isn’t the only thing that the 753 air-hostesses want changed.
Says Maldeep Sidhu, a former air-hostess who’s now leading the campaign for equal rights. ‘‘In principle, everyone we meet agrees there should be gender equality. But, in practice, we continue to face the bias and are humiliated on every single flight.’’
Consider these:
• Air-India’s air-hostesses are considered junior to all male cabin crew, irrespective of the number of years they have served in the airline.
• Air-hostesses are not eligible for the top crew position of Flight Supervisors though they are trained in training schools.
• All air-hostesses, from age 35 on, are required to undergo a biennial medical examination while there is no such requirement for men. Recently, an internal gynaecological check-up has been included which women staff say has no bearing on ‘‘in-flight fitness.’’
• While men and women are required to have regular weight checks, only the women are grounded on account of excessive weight. There have been instances when men have been allowed to fly despite being as much as 40 kg overweight.
• Only men are eligible for the monthly bar loss allowance of 30 pounds a month. This allowance is a compensation for what the AI management assumes are losses arising out of non-payment by passengers buying liquor on flight. Assistant flight pursers and Supervisors who don’t handle the cash also get the allowance.
Over the past few weeks, a delegation of air-hostesses has been doing the rounds in New Delhi, meeting powerful women politicians Sonia Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj and Mamata Banerjee. And are now trying to set up meetings with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and Law Minister Arun Jaitley.
Civil Aviation Minister Rajeev Pratap Rudy told The Sunday Express that the issue was both an administrative problem and gender-related as well. ‘‘A representation has been made to us by the air-hostesses and I have asked the Managing Director to examine the issue in detail. We are also trying to seek the legal opinion of the Solicitor General before deciding on the course of action.’’
The issue is being blown out of proportion, says Rajeev Joshi, Senior Vice President of the Air-India Cabin Crew Association (AICCA).
With A-I’s top management declining to comment, A-I’s PR director Jitendra Bhargava says: ‘‘This is not just a simple gender issue as it is being made out. If it was just a gender issue, the Supreme Court would have given a different verdict.’’