Russian flight attendant sues airline for discrimination

2017-08-22 11:15 Last Updated At：11:15

"Old, fat and ugly" is what Yevgeniya Magurina jokingly calls a group of flight attendants of Russia's flagship airline Aeroflot who she claims have been sidelined in an apparent drive to make the cabin crew younger and more physically attractive. She is one of just two women who have taken one of the world's largest airlines to court for that.

A Moscow court is due to rule on Tuesday in Magurina's lawsuit against Aeroflot in which she maintains she was taken off the sought-after long-haul international flights because of her looks. The flight attendant's claim, which triggered a wave of support as well condemnation, has put the spotlight on how women in modern Russia are still often judged by their physical appearance.

The first warning shot rang for Magurina last summer when the 42-year old went to pick up a new uniform and discovered that Aeroflot no longer stocks any above Russian size 48 (U.S. size 10). Magurina, who says size 48 fits her on the hips but not on the breast, used to order a larger size and get it tailored. Then, all flight attendants were ordered to be weighed and photographed as part of a contest to staff a special business class crew. Several months later, Magurina, who had typically worked as senior attendant, arrived at the Sheremetyevo airport for her flight only to see she was assigned a junior role: "You scan your pass, the names of the crew light up and you see your position. No one has even told me."

Magurina, one of Aeroflot's 7,000 cabin crew staff, says about 600 flight attendants, mostly women, have been put on a list that she jokingly calls the "old, fat and ugly" and have been re-assigned for less prestigious flights. Like others, Magurina was taken off the long-haul international flights and put on the lower-paid domestic ones:

"No one cares about professionalism — you have to be young, slim and pretty," says Magurina who lives in the suburb of Lobnya near the airport, home to thousands of Aeroflot staff.

Local courts in April dismissed Magurina's lawsuit as well as a similar claim by another flight attendant, Irina Ierusalimskaya. The Moscow City Court is expected to rule on Magurina's appeal on Tuesday.

Aeroflot in recent years has undertaken to transform itself from a drab post-Soviet airline to something that can rival the world's best airlines on comfort and efficiency. Its most recent efforts included a five-year partnership deal with FC Manchester United and enlisting well-known chefs to create menus for its business class passengers.

But there has been controversy, too.

An online forum of flight attendants in 2010 published what appeared to be a mock-up of a calendar with a nude woman wearing a flight attendant's red hat and white gloves and posing by an Aeroflot plane and inside the cabin. The company promptly denied that it had commissioned the shoot and said it would investigate how a photographer and a model were allowed to get inside the plane.

The airline that posted 38.8 billion rubles ($650 million) in net profit last year has recently been rated four out of five stars by the Skytrax consultancy and has entered the world's top 20 airlines by the number of passengers carried.

Aeroflot has dismissed Magurina and Ierusalimskaya's lawsuits as "a routine employee vs. employer dispute that has been deliberately inflated to the scale of a public campaign aimed at tarnishing the airline's reputation," according to Vladimir Alexandrov, the company's deputy CEO for legal matters.

When asked whether the company has stopped stocking XL uniforms for female cabin crew staff, Alexandrov told the Associated Press that Aeroflot does not disclose its "internal rules and regulations" He added, however, that the cabin crew's job is "physically and psychologically demanding."

The two women's court battle with Russia's biggest airline has attracted a wave support from some and condemnation from others.

At a news conference in April, a member of Aeroflot's public council argued it was "quite acceptable to pay for good looks."

"Aeroflot is a premium airline, and the staff's looks is definitely one of the things the clients pay for," Pavel Danilin, himself an overweight man, said.

Aeroflot told the AP members of its public council do not speak on the company's behalf.

Often the one to voice a common but unpalatable public opinion, Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite turned prominent journalist, said that she understands why Aeroflot would not want to get rid of older and less physically attractive women.

"If you build a beautiful company, you have the right to demand that your staff look good," Sobchak said on the Dozhd television channel after the April ruling. "Why would you become a flight attendant if your butt is this big?"

Yulia Zakharova, a Moscow-based clinical psychologist, said the public reaction to the trial shows that Russia is still a largely patriarchal society despite the decades of Communist slogans of gender equality.

"New values are seeping in slowly but the patriarchy is still very much alive," Zakharova said. In Soviet times "women were 'equal' in a sense that she was to 'go and get a job' but then she would come home and make dinner. These expectations are still there."

The fact that the female flight attendants are reportedly expected to stay well below size L while men are allowed wear XL shows how underprivileged women are in Russia.

"Society judges women with the eyes of a young man," Zakharova said.

Migurina, who keeps two sets of size 48 Aeroflot uniform in her closet, says she is upset that her decade of work as a flight attendant and seven years with Aeroflot has been cancelled out by a few inches.

"Right now there's a policy that a flight attendant has to be sexually attractive," she says. "But our role onboard is different: it's to ensure safety, not to be an object of sexual desire. This is wrong and hurtful."

Moscow marks Victory Day with a scaled down Red Square parade under tight security

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday voiced confidence of victory in Ukraine as he oversaw a military parade on Red Square commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II — a show that didn't include heavy weapons for the first time in nearly two decades.

Security was tight in Moscow as Putin and several foreign leaders attended the parade, which was scaled down even as a U.S.-brokered three-day ceasefire eased concerns about possible Ukrainian attempts to disrupt the festivities.

Putin, in power for more than a quarter-century, has used Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, to showcase the country’s military might and rally support for his military action in Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, declaring that they “face an aggressive force that is armed and supported by the entire bloc of NATO," and are fighting for a “just cause.”

“Victory has always been and will be ours,” Putin said, as columns of troops lined up on Red Square. “The key to success is our moral strength, courage and valor, our unity and ability to endure anything and overcome any challenge.”

But in a notable shift this year, the parade took place without tanks, missiles and other heavy equipment, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.

Officials explained the sudden change of format by the “current operational situation” and said that additional security measures have been taken in response to the threat of Ukrainian attacks. State television commentators said that the heavy weaponry was more needed at the battlefield in Ukraine.

For the first time, Saturday's parade featured troops from North Korea, a tribute to Pyongyang that sent its soldiers to fight alongside Moscow forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Russia declared a unilateral ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a truce that was supposed to begin on May 6, but neither of them held as the parties traded blame for continuing attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that Russia and Ukraine have bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9, followed up on Trump's statement by issuing a decree mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.” “We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military has been making slow but steady gains along the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) front line. Ukraine has hit back with increasingly efficient long-range attacks, striking Russian energy facilities, manufacturing plants and military depots. It has developed drones capable of reaching targets over 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) deep into Russia, far beyond its capabilities before 2022.

Russian authorities warned that if Ukraine attempts to disrupt Saturday’s festivities, Russia will carry out a “massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv.” The Russian Defense Ministry warned the civilian population there and employees of foreign diplomatic missions of “the need to leave the city promptly.” The EU said its diplomats wouldn’t leave the Ukrainian capital despite Russian threats.

Putin has used Victory Day celebrations to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in 1941-45 in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche and remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule.

“We celebrate it with feelings of pride and love for our country, with understanding of our shared duty to defend the interests and future of our Motherland,” Putin said at the parade.

“Our soldiers suffered colossal losses, made a colossal sacrifice in the name of freedom and dignity of the peoples of Europe, became the embodiment of courage and nobility, fortitude and humanity, and crowned themselves with the great glory of a grandiose victory.”

Victory Day parades on Red Square have involved a broad array of heavy weapons — from armored vehicles to nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles — every year since 2008. Smaller parades are held elsewhere across the country, but this time many of them have also been pared down or even canceled altogether for security reasons.

The authorities on Saturday ordered restrictions on all mobile internet access and text messaging services in the Russian capital, citing the need to ensure public safety. The government has methodically tightened internet censorship and established increasingly stringent controls over online activities, causing rumblings and rare public expressions of discontent.

Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko attended the festivities in the Russian capital.

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, a European Union member, laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial just outside the Kremlin walls but stayed away from the Red Square parade. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized Fico’s trip, saying, "I deeply regret this, and we will discuss his visit to Moscow with him.”

Speaking at a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, Fico bemoaned what he called a new “Iron Curtain” in Europe that hampered trade, and emphasized the importance of Russia's energy supplies to Slovakia. Putin hailed the Slovak leader for conducting a “sovereign” foreign policy and honoring the memory of fallen Red Army soldiers.

Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Fico informed Putin about his discussions with Zelenskyy but didn't convey any message from the Ukrainian leader.

Russian flight attendant sues airline for discrimination

Russian flight attendant sues airline for discrimination

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