Aviation regulator DGCA plans to relax the strict fitness norms for female cabin crew as it seeks to ensure uniform regulations for airline crew, according to a senior official.
The Body Mass Index (BMI) -- an indicator of obesity -- has to be within a specified range for individuals to serve as cabin crew. The requirement is different for male and female crew.
A senior DGCA official Wednesday said the regulator is looking to relax the BMI requirements for female cabin crew as they are currently stricter compared to their male counterparts.
Currently, the official said BMI norms are the same for cockpit crew -- both male and female -- and for male cabin crew.
Cockpit crew refers to pilots.
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To ensure "gender parity", changes have been proposed so that existing regulations are the same for all crew members, the official said.
The watchdog has sought comments from the stakeholders on the proposed changes to an existing Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) pertaining to medical fitness of cabin crew. Comments can be submitted till December 26.
According to regulations issued by the DGCA in 2014, a BMI of 18-25 is normal for a male cabin crew, while for a female it is 18-22.
A BMI of 25-29.9 for male crew is considered overweight and 30 and above is obese, while for females BMI of 22-27 is overweight and 27 and above obese, as per the regulations.
BMI is considered a better method to determine whether an individual is overweight or obese and is arrived at by measuring the weight and height of the individual in a clinical setting.
As per the regulator, BMI is a reliable indicator of body fat. BMI does not measure body fat directly, but correlates it to direct measures of body fat.
In the past, there have been instances of certain airlines deciding to ground some of their cabin crew for being obese or overweight.
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