Rejected flight attendant gets her own back

A Moscow court ruled yesterday in favour of a flight attendant who claimed Russia’s flagship airline stopped assigning her to work long-haul international flights because of her looks.

The Moscow City Court overturned a ruling by a district court that had rejected a claim by Yevgeniya Magurina, pictured, that she was sidelined as part of Aeroflot’s drive to make its cabin crews younger and more physically attractive.

The flight attendant’s lawsuit put a spotlight on how women in modern Russia are still often judged by their looks.

Magurina submitted pay slips showing she stopped receiving bonus pay that had comprised roughly 20% of her income after she asked for a larger-sized uniform. She says she also no longer was assigned as senior steward.

Magurina had requested 500 000 rubles (about R111 000) in damages and for the court to rule the company’s regulations on clothing sizes discriminatory. The court yesterday upheld her discrimination claim, but awarded the flight attendant just 5 000 rubles in damages.

Her attorney welcomed the ruling, calling it “definitely a victory”.

“We were not suing for money. We wanted the court to acknowledge that you cannot treat people like that,” lawyer Ksenia Michaylichenko said.

Aeroflot’s press office did not have immediate comment.

Magurina claimed her experience was part of a broader move that affected hundreds of other flight attendants who faced pay cuts and were taken off the prestigious long-haul flights.

Magurina said a sympathetic manager leaked her documents showing that some 600 of Aeroflot’s 7 000 cabin crew, most of them women, were reassigned to shorter flights without bonus pay because they were considered too “old, fat and ugly”. –

We were not suing for money. We wanted the court to acknowledge that you cannot treat people like that. Ksenia Michaylichenko Yevgeniya Magurina’s lawyer