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The de-glamourisation of the flight attendant: Air hostesses were once carefully preserved legends, admired from a distance; now, academies turn out girls who serve 40 at a go at economy rates

“Flight attendant,” Nayma corrects me; it’s the politically correct reference to the streamlined new model of the seventies’ dreamboats who guided Indian passengers to gentle landings. A few decades ago she would have been an air hostess, with access to plush hotels and Condé Nast-worthy vacations, possibly on the heels of a modeling career and the accompanying public persona. Wearing her sari sexy, that woman was sometimes the subject of enticing advertisements, suggesting the illicit pleasures of flying and that marketable commodity, exotic Indian beauty. Or else, the equally popular romanticisation that is Indian hospitality. Often, life would segue into a life-altering marriage and unimaginable prosperity: glamour, in the eyes of pre-liberalisation India.

But while 29-year-old Nayma is just as alluring and could easily model, she is now part of a professionally fitted team of ‘cabin crew’ at Jet Airways—and she’s already burnt out. “My friends used to envy me when I started out at 21 because of the travel and the big salary, more than what they got starting out,” she says. ‘But in the last 10 years, I’m exhausted; less staff to each flight and less time than stipulated between flights, ordinary hotel rooms far from the cities we used to like exploring but now don’t have the time to. And my salary has not grown; theirs have.” Just as the elegant pantsuit or skirt set have replaced the sari, life too has gone economy class, in some ways.

“Glamour was in the seventies, when Parmeshwar Godrej and Maureen Wadia were air hostesses,” recalls Jitendra Bhargava, former executive director of Air India. “Then, there was only the film industry – and flying.” The air hostess of yesterday was a beautiful, carefully preserved legend, admired at a certain distance and in the rarefied atmosphere of expensive air travel; today, training academies turn out well-groomed girls who can serve 40 at a go at economy rates. After the Kingfisher crisis ran its course last February, the public heard about delayed pay, frustrated staff and the lack of alternatives—but the real challenge of aviation’s over-subscribed flight attendants comes daily.

They were drawn by the allure of the upgrade: frequent international travel and relatively high salaries. Air hostesses at private airlines like Jet and Kingfisher make from Rs 60,000 to 80,000 monthly on the international circuit, depending on how much they save off travel allowances, without having to invest in undergraduate or post graduate education, and with little other experience. For someone fresh out of school, seeking to avoid the IAS and MBA route, here is access to the previously unattainable perks attendant to a high disposable income.

‘I can’t really see any of today’s hostesses marrying into the Wadias and Godrejs,’ journalist Vir Sanghvi commented in a column some years ago. ‘It isn’t that we look down on them. It’s more that we’ve stopped looking up to them.’ This smacks of the kind of snobbery women face as they enter the workplace, but the remark marks the obvious strains of growth and changing gender dynamics. These women want the same lifestyle, to see the same cities and live as large. But they also want to save while they’re at it—and they are looking for respect and professional treatment.

“This was a later, legendary glamour cultivated through marriages like Parmeshwars, attached to when they became society women, adjuncted to the idea of the wife,” argues Shefalee Vasudev, author of Powder Room, a contemporary account of Indian fashion. “But it was also a ‘forward’ career, and the word did not have the problematic connotations it has today. It meant going out and getting a life for yourself. The Doordarshan newsreader was also seen as glamorous; Salma Sultan, Neethi Ravindran and her saris. Today, the TV anchor is not as glamorous, like the flight attendant.”

Quality of life is the source of complaints. “How much work is too much work?” is a question Indians are starting to ask, in a country which is increasingly reaching global standards but allows a six or even seven day work week. This is an industry which has kept exceptionally quiet. “You need 13 people to serve an international flight on a B777-300, but sometimes nine people are doing the work. They don’t want to pay that many people,” says Rubina Dhillon, a former flight attendant. “The extra four people—do the math. Stay, board, allowance, extra pay for hours, everything. People do complain, but nothing happens.”

Just about five feet two inches tall, the 31-year-old looks tiny but holds her own. We spoke to her first after she had just left the industry; Dhillon, a psychology graduate with an army background, peaked at six-and-a-half years, not uncommon. Like many cabin crew members in their late twenties who sought a new vocation when opportunities as sprightly, presentable young cabin crew were exhausted, she wanted to leave but had her doubts about feasible options. In 2011, she checked out, before reaping all of this line’s considerable profits: “I enjoyed all the travel and the money, but I was soon exhausted. More than the sexual harassment which women in this line are said to be vulnerable to, it’s the long, difficult hours that get you.” At 22, she had drifted into a cabin crew job she wasn’t sure she wanted, having passed it up in the first round of interviews. Today, she works at a major public relations firm.

Not everyone has been so lucky in this self-perpetuating yet strapped industry; many airlines are reporting losses and cutbacks, yet new applicants throng around the hatch. Countless young women—and some men—who travel to the country’s metros from small towns to work in the airline industry have to return home if they are laid off or tire of the job; or, they stay and take other, lower-paying jobs. Private enterprises like Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training, founded in 1993, eagerly cash in, hungry for talent—“Send me your resume,” the lady on the phone says as soon as our call is answered. However, there is no return call when she hears we want a quote on flight attendants’ welfare.

“We might spend eight hours in the air, but we also spend two hours reporting and much more than the 15 minutes they say we’ll need after landing,” says Disha, who has worked with Jet Airways for six years as cabin crew. “If we don’t take off and are grounded, which sometimes happens, especially in winter, we still have to serve passengers and are not paid for that or for reporting.”

Cabin crew regulations for airlines stipulate that flight attendants work a maximum of eight hours flying time and 11 hours including reporting time per day on the domestic circuit, under the Flight Duty Time Limit. (They also allows 30 hours in seven consecutive days, 125 hours in 30 consecutive days, 1000 in 365 days; internationally, a maximum of 11 hours daily and 15 hours including reporting time, 45 for seven days, 125 for 30 days and 1000 for 365 consecutive days. ) Compensatory rest of two hours extra per extended hour is allotted, but in addition to the stipulated 120 or 150 minutes prior to scheduled time of departure, there are makeup and dress code requirements which might take another hour, and travel to the airport. These are hours that are not accounted for on a regular basis.

“There is some overtime pay for extended hours but no one I check with seems to recall how much exactly,” says Disha. “There used to be a short crew allowance before, but they stopped giving it; whenever there’s a crunch they stop giving it. There are sometimes four people serving 162 regular and eight privileged—170 passengers! We are meeting safety requirements, but it’s service that gets out of hand. And we are made to sign an agreement saying we won’t talk to the media; we are not allowed to form a union.”

The Jet Airways cabin crew manual says, ‘A cabin crew shall neither be detailed nor undertake any duty between 0000— 0500 hours (domestic operations), if during the previous day he/she has performed a flight duty during the same period.’ However, many of the flight attendants interviewed over the last few years say people end up working too soon after returning from a flight. Service will drain you physically, they claim. Indeed, weakness and hair loss, as well as problems with hearing and childbearing are often reported amongst women who work for 10 years or less.

Bhargava, who headed human resources and in-flight service while at Air India, blames the greedy expansion of the private airline industry. “The airlines have been pulled up, but the DGCA is not stringent enough,” he says. “It is no longer a dreaded regulatory body that monitors airlines. The industry has grown so it can’t regulate as efficiently.” But, he allows for some exaggeration on the part of the flight attendants, saying, “I doubt people are working more hours than they want to.”

Not all of the glamour is properly recalled either; those were different times with different rewards, though the standards were certainly higher than today’s in some ways. “The airline was particular that only girls from good schools were chosen in the old days,” says Shehzarin Avari, a sexagenarian who joined Air India in 1964 and left after around four years, in the days of JRD Tata. “We were trained on the ground for about nine months and got our basic salary and allowances. Then, we had to find and pay for accommodation on our own. It was hard work with long hours; often through the night. There were no trolleys then. We walked back and forth from the gallery carrying big, heavy trays with proper crockery and cutlery, laden with food. Balancing huge metal coffee and teapots made us strong in the arms and wrists!”

Of course, there was a different kind of treatment that made up for this unnoticed—or unadvertised—labour. “We were trained in how to wear a sari and apply makeup and were allowed lipstick, eye liner and mascara—though we had beauticians from Paris come and train us in how to apply makeup and do our hair.”

The finishing school ethos is almost palpable; “When we were on out station layovers (some places for four to five days) we had to be back in the hotel every night and could not leave town.” Try to imagine enforcing curfew on today’s upwardly mobile, independent working women.

The concept of glamour is what has been complicated, Vasudev says. “These girls in their own bracket are still glamourous, in that range of young women who will dress up and go to work; whether in hospitality or sales. Designer Rajesh Pratap Singh created the navy-blue IndiGo uniform.” IndiGo is indeed an icon of style in the air, both in its sleek, modern advertorials and the wigs and makeup its crew plays with. “What’s interesting is male flight attendants,” adds Vasudev. “The mythical new age man, boiling milk while the wife has her post-coital drink—that’s him. In fact, male flight attendants take care of passengers with more sensitivity at times.”

And airlines like Spice Jet are attempting revamps. Siddharth Kumar, senior account manager, says they are announcing an upcoming weekend uniform of jeans and T-shirts; casual chic that takes us even further away from society lady glamour.

Ambitions were different in the old days, but there were lower bars to meet, a less frenetic pace. “We were supposed to fly 60 hours a month from ‘chocks on’ to ‘chocks off’,” says Avari, of the old air hostess days. This, shockingly, is half the amount of the maximum time allowed to flight attendants these days.

“I have had to ground a few flights, but we do not get a lot of reports of this nature,” said EK Bharat Bhushan, former Director General at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) when we spoke in 2012. “Flight attendants are not registered with the DGCA, so we have no records for them. A lot of the monitoring has to be internal,” he clarifies; pilots’ Flight Duty Limits are what is closely monitored. (The current DGCA was contacted but could not be reached for comment at the time of going to press.)

Flight attendants say they can’t resist the big money they were promised—but is it still all that much? Six years ago, Rs 80,000 bought a lot—but instead of increments, flight attendants like Nayma, Disha and Rubina were given more international flights, with the accruing benefits, when things were good. “Our basic salary is too low, and sometimes it is late. Earlier it was paid on the third, then the fourth; now we get it around the tenth. It’s so difficult for people paying loans. And whenever they go through a financial crisis they make us share rooms on international layovers,” says Disha. She adds that we should check with the DGCA; it is this general confusion that the industry sustains its labour force on. No one is sure what exactly is permissible. As one senior aviation industry official put it: “It’s a no man’s land.”

“When we had meetings, I spoke up about the unfairness of working hours, but it all comes to nothing,” says Dhillon. “Head honchos come to meet us, and when I spoke up, my base manager came down heavily on me. I was given no international flights for two months, and whenever they next had staff meetings, I was put on a flight.” The world she describes is a carefully controlled, antiseptic atmosphere—with an expiry date. There is an impermanent aspect to the life of a flight attendant that is especially worrying to the aspirational middle-class girl who is now her; it could all change, any minute, and no one will really notice. There’ll be someone new to replace you, tomorrow, and you are out of a job and looking again, with little additional educational skills or experience outside of service.

Dhillon narrates one particular incident where a drunken man somehow got on board, even, unbelievably, bringing out a bottle of Malibu he’d stashed away. Is there a proper procedure in place, to report an incident like this? “You can report it to your supervisor, who will take it to the manager, who will forward it to higher authorities,” she says. “Nine times out of ten, the customer will be right—usually people don’t want to report. The emphasis is on safety and security, even in our rigorous training, not on incidents of this nature.”

Importantly, the passengers have also changed. In addition to inappropriate behaviour generally reported amongst what several flight attendants call “labour class passengers”, Dhillon also describes one of several alleged sexual harassment cases, now legendary: a flight attendant tried to reprimand a VIP customer who was making inappropriate comments and he eventually slapped her. Following an enquiry, she was eventually asked to apologise to the passenger. She resigned, in protest. Here is an atmosphere in which a person can be fired for giving a privileged passenger the wrong number of ice cubes (a confirmed urban aviation legend).

“It’s not exploitation – no one’s being forced,” says Dhillon, “but it could be better: give them more than enough rest, enough people in a crew, support your staff against customers when the need arises.” As the aviation industry rides its crises, this is one simmering issue yet to be dealt with. In the meanwhile, we surf Tumblr histories of ye olde air hostesses, remember our Wadias, content ourselves with nostalgia. And fight for our upgrades.

(Names have been changed, when given without last names.)

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