The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked the SpiceJet chairman and managing director Ajay Singh to take down a post on social media that sexualises and objectifies its cabin crew as “red-hot girls”. But irony died a thousand deaths when the airline asserted that the reference was part of its tagline used with “immense pride” often for “product promotions”, the demeanour of its staff as well as “hot meals”.
On December 19, SpiceJet on its Twitter timeline posted a picture of its women cabin crew posing with Bollywood actor Dharmendra, along with the caption “Garam Dharam with our red-hot girls”. The airline’s own tagline is “Red, Hot, Spicy” and the Bollywood actor is referred to as “Garam Dharam” for his he-man image.
A passenger complained about the “sexist remark” that he said was antithetical to “Indian culture” and tagged the National Commission for Women as well as the Chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal. This spurred the NCW into action, and it replied on Tuesday that it had written to the SpiceJet CMD requesting him to investigate the matter, and “take down the post”.
In response to a query sent by The Hindu the airline stood by its social media post. “‘Red. Hot. Spicy’ has been SpiceJet’s tagline for the longest time. It has been consistently used for almost all our product promotions, brand communications and social media posts with immense pride,” its spokesperson said.
In defence
He added that the airline used the colour red to mean young, vibrant and warm, while the words such as “hot and spicy” was used to denote “cheerful and friendly-passenger experience”. These terms were also used to refer to its hot meals, it added.
The airline has invited flak for several years for portraying its women cabin crew, who wear short skirts and heels, in advertisements that use sexual innuendos. Sample this, an advertisement promoting the airline’s mobile app depicts a mobile phone along with a model wearing a red-coloured short dress similar to its cabin crew uniform with a caption that reads “hold the hotness”. Another promotional material widely circulated reads, “It gets hotter, as you go higher” along with images of its cabin crew.
Similar language was also used for its hot beverages such as “sip the hotness”. Though most of these advertisements only depicted women cabin crew, the airline recruits both men and women for the job.
Gender-neutral uniform
Some airlines have consciously moved away from blatant objectification of the women crew members by adopting uniforms that are more suitable for their profession, which primarily includes ensuring the safety of the passengers and the aircraft.
Akasa Air, which unveiled its crew uniform ahead of the airline’s launch in August, has a gender-neutral attire for its male and female cabin-crew, which has a more sporty rather than sexy feel to it. It includes jackets, trousers and sneakers with extra cushioning, to allow them mobility, given their safety critical role.
Among the Indian airlines, Vistara could be said to be a precursor for moving away from the stereotypical short skirts and heels for the cabin-crew uniform, and introducing comfortable pants and long shirts.
The head-turning and eye-popping imagery and language used in some advertisements would almost have one believe that the cabin- crew are eye candies meant to attend to the whims and fancies of the travellers, but little do passengers realise that they are in fact meant to keep them and their aircraft safe.
Evaluating passengers
“When the cabin crew greet passengers they are also evaluating whether they are fit to fly people such as women in advanced stages of pregnancy, or drunk passengers or severely disabled ones who can’t be seated on exit-row seats. Then comes the safety demonstration, and ensuring that passengers are wearing seat belts and their seats are erect— when your feet are not firmly on the ground there are more chances of passengers toppling over and obstructing an evacuation,” explains Arun Kapur, who served as the Safety and Emergency Procedures Instructor at Air India, and retired as an in-flight supervisor after 38 years of service. “They have to be always on alert, for instance, a magazine carelessly dropped on the floor can lead to a passenger slipping and again creating an obstruction for another one,” he adds
Mr. Kapur underlined that an aircraft was certified as fit to fly passengers only when it was able to demonstrate an evacuation in 90 seconds with only half the doors open, and with a diverse set of passengers including the old and the disabled. And these were the eventualities that the cabin crew were primarily trained for, while the passenger comfort was a small and rather less significant part of their duties.
Published - December 21, 2022 04:43 pm IST
