Aeroflot Workers Are Told Passengers Want Attractive Flight Crews<br />"The flight attendants are not being discriminated against, as has been demonstrated in two court cases<br />that were ruled upon in Aeroflot’s favor this month." Last February, when the allegations by cabin crew members were first raised publicly, Aeroflot issued a statement denying any discrimination based on age or appearance.<br />The event took a bizarre twist, however, as two men defending the airline interrupted the proceedings to upbraid the two employees, talking about one’s breast size, and undercutting repeated assertions from Aeroflot<br />that it had not discriminated by arguing that attractive flight staff were important for business.<br />By NEIL MacFARQUHARAPRIL 25, 2017<br />MOSCOW — By Russian standards, the news conference on Tuesday was unusual: an airing of grievances by two female flight<br />attendants who had taken the rare step of suing Aeroflot, the country’s flag carrier, for age and sex discrimination.<br />The two women — one of whom had worked for the airline for 26 years — lost their initial court cases<br />and had called the news conference to announce they would appeal.<br />Aeroflot’s position was set out in the Court, which rejected the claims brought by Magurina<br />and Ierusalimskaya against Aeroflot." The two men had cited a passenger survey in which passengers overwhelmingly stated a preference for attractive cabin crews, and the airline’s public relations agency in London sent it out again on Tuesday.<br />Every Aeroflot flight starts with a video of three skinny, statuesque female flight attendants in the airline’s trademark orange uniforms embroidered with a flying hammer<br />and sickle gliding through an airport, and many new employees of both sexes seem to have been hired with young glamour in mind.
