Stewardesses cut fuel bill

AN INDIAN airline has decided to recruit only women flight attendants in future.

This is because it has found that its aircraft burn less fuel carrying women than their heavier male counterparts.

Low-cost carrier GoAir says that deploying air hostesses, who on average weigh 15kg-20kg less than men stewards, will help it save about Rs30-million (R5.1-million) a year in fuel costs.

Airline officials estimate that every extra kilogramme a commercial aircraft carries costs it an additional Rs3 a flight hour.

Alternatively, an overall reduction in weight results in savings.

“We are looking at all possible ways of cost-cutting to remain profitable,” GoAir CEO Giorgio de Roni told the Times of India.

A sharp fall in the rupee’s exchange rate, 27% weaker against the US dollar since last July, had so far cost the airline an additional Rs300-million, De Roni said.

Operating 15 aircraft, GoAir employs 330 cabin crew members, of whom 132 are men.

Although none of the cabin stewards will be sacked, all forthcoming recruitment for the 80 additional aircraft GoAir plans on inducting by 2020 will be stewardesses.

De Roni told the Times that his airline was constantly engaged in reducing the weight its aircraft carried.

The size of in-flight magazines, for instance, had been reduced, and aircraft water tanks were no longer filled to capacity as less than half their volume was normally used by passengers. —©