Flight attendants slam airline’s ‘beauty contest’
May 3, 2011
American Airlines flight attendants demanded an end to what they said is a company “beauty contest” that harks back to the era of an all-women workforce facing weigh-ins and wearing girdles.
The airline’s push to find the best-looking female and male attendants at each crew base as uniform models undermines their chief duty of ensuring safety, Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, said in an e-mail today to the union’s 18,000 members at American.
“This campaign just transported us back 50 years to the days of girdles, weight-checks and single, female-only stewardesses having to quit when they were married, pregnant or reached the ripe old age of 30,” Glading wrote. She urged members to boycott the “ridiculous, insulting beauty contest.”