An ex-Emirates flight attendant has claimed staff were given deadlines to lose weight if their uniforms looked tight and would be sacked if they couldn’t do it in time.
A former member of management who worked at the airline for almost six years, said flight staff were enrolled into a ‘Weight Management Programme’ if their uniform didn’t fit right and ‘all it would take was for you to be seen by the wrong person’.
The luxury Dubai-based airline has a long-standing reputation of employing young, good-looking and thin staff.
The 38-year-old told the Daily Mail while not everyone was attractive, looking good was almost demanded.
He said: ‘You associate that job with being young, beautiful and glamorous.
‘They were all put together in the same way and everybody had to have the exact same shade of lipstick, but it wasn’t a prerequisite to be beautiful.
‘But you got measured for your uniform and before each flight you had grooming checks. I had to check that the girls were wearing the correct nail polish, that the guys had the correct shoes and things like that.
‘If the uniform looked a bit tight, I had to report it and if they have to go up a size then they run the risk of going on a weight management programme.
An ex-Emirates flight attendant has claimed staff would be given deadlines to lose weight if their uniforms looked tight and would be sacked if they couldn’t do it in time (Stock image)
‘They put you on a nutrition plan and with a dietician so there is some assistance, but a lot does fall on you and you’re given a window of time where you should get back down to the weight you were at otherwise you do lose your job.
‘If your uniform was too tight all it would take was for you to be seen by the wrong person.
‘You were taken off your roster, they didn’t let you fly until you could fit in your uniform again. People lost their jobs’
The remarks come after Emirates boss Sir Tim Clark denied when asked on Pierce Morgan Uncensored if ‘old and ugly men and women are banned from being employed.’
Mr Clark said: ‘We’re always trying to get the people who have all the qualities that we need to sustain our brand and advance our brand. That is empathy, that is the ability to work with people, work under pressures.
‘If it happens by coincidence they happen to be good-looking, well done.’
The ex-cabin supervisor added while he aimed not to report people, he was facing his own pressures from workers more senior to him
‘You got measured for your uniform. If it looked tight I had to report it and they’d get put on a weight management programme.
‘If there was someone more senior than me, they would’ve said that I should’ve spotted that person and then I would’ve got into trouble.
‘That’s just how it was, you were conditioned to think that was normal. You don’t realise how abnormal it is until you leave.
‘It didn’t happen a lot, but it most certainly happened.’
The pressures of being banned from flying and losing your job meant there were some cases where people would take unhealthy measures to lose weight.
‘There was a girl that used to yo-yo like crazy. I think she was on weight management a couple of times, she used to lose the weight really quickly because she loved flying and wanted to get back to it.
‘I think there’s probably healthier ways that she could’ve done it,’ said the 38-year-old.
Maya Dukaric claimed that ‘weight police’ would occasionally stop cabin crew at airports
Other reports have previously claimed that those in the weight management programme were given diet and exercise plans and would meet with HR to assess their progress.
Failure to meet weight goals set by the airline’s officers would lead to punishments such as pay cuts, it has been claimed.
One Emirates air hostess claimed she quit her 10-year career after having to spend three years on a weight management programme, which involved having random weight checks before flights.
Duygu Karaman, who lives in High Wycombe, once told the Mirror that in the last three years of her time working for the airline she had her body size monitored because an anonymous colleague had complained that she was ‘too heavy’.
She explained that despite being a size 12, weighing 10st 7lbs, the airline began tracking her BMI and would be pulled aside at random for weight checks before flights.
And Maya Dukaric, who previously worked as a flight attendant for the airline, claimed that ‘weight police’ would occasionally stop cabin crew at airports and say: ‘Hey, babe. You need to slow it down.’
Another troubling aspect of the job was that staff were forced to retire at 50 years old, the 38-year-old claimed.
He said: ‘It is a very physically demanding job, but I don’t like the idea of being 50 and then forced into retirement because there’s quite a limited amount of opportunity after that.
‘Emirates should offer more for them after, which I don’t believe they do.’
Having left the company almost nine years ago, he reflected on his time there.
‘It’s Dubai and they can do whatever they want. It sounds nuts to people like you and me, but there was nothing protecting us.
‘Looking back on it it’s very weird, but at the time I didn’t know any different I just went with it.
‘I loved the lifestyle and there were some really good parts of the job, but looking back on it some of the things were pretty toxic.’
Emirates have been contacted for comment.
