A Moscow court has dismissed a discrimination lawsuit against Russian air carrier Aeroflot for reportedly demoting "unattractive" flight attendants.
Flight attendant Irina Yerusalimskaya sued Aeroflot for imposing regulations on stewardess' weight, height and clothing size, the TASS news agency reported Tuesday.
She demanded that the regulations be abolished and 1 million rubles ($17,840) in compensation, the report said.
Several flight attendants came forward with the allegations that Aeroflot had demoted them due to their age or size in February 2017.
All stewardesses were photographed, measured and weighed by the airline in June last year, supposedly to have new uniforms ordered, one flight attendant said. The women subsequently discovered that only “thin and young” flight attendants would be assigned to work on international flights.
“Everyone older than 40 or with clothing size larger than 48 [international L, U.S. 14] was taken off international flights,” 41-year-old Yevgenia Magurina told the Svoboda radio station. “They made it a real torture for us, assigning us only night-time flights or short-haul flights in the early morning.”
When Magurina questioned the move, she was told the airline had introduced new regulations. “I was [told I had been] taken off international flights because of my clothing size – my size now has to be smaller than 46 [international M, U.S. size 12], and mine was 48,” she said.
Several other flight attendants told Svoboda that they had also been forced to work fewer hours or received smaller bonuses.
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