Qatar Flight Crews Finally Free to Wed & Start Families
Joe Cortez August 31, 2015
New Qatar Airways policies allow flight attendants to freely marry and start families after notifying the airline.
After facing accusations of discriminating against female flight attendants, Qatar Airways is revising some of its policies. Bloomberg reports the Gulf carrier has announced a number of changes that will positively impact its female employees.
The airline was first denounced in February 2015 by the International Transport Workers’ Federation, an international federations of unions. In their initial report, the ITWF accused Qatar Airways of creating unfair work policies for women, threatening to fire them if they were to become pregnant or marry without permission from the airline. This was followed by a 13-page report from the International Labour Office that accused the carrier of including “discriminatory provisions in the employment contract of cabin crew members with Qatar Airways as well as discriminatory practices against women employees.”
Qatar Airways is reportedly changing its policies to be more female-employee friendly, doing away with many of the policies pointed out by the ILO report. Under a new contract, the airline will allow female flight attendants to marry within their first five years of employment, so long as they inform the airline of their plans. In addition, flight attendants who become pregnant will be offered temporary jobs on the ground.
“As the airline matures, the workforce matures,” said Rossen Dimitrov, senior vice president at Qatar Airways. “You can’t turn to someone who is 35 years old and say ‘No, you can’t have a family, wait.’ We want to retain people.”
[Photo: Qatar Airways]
ZPaul: I guess they were allowed to marry only after their fifth year at the company and now this ban was lifted.
More double talk from the Middle East.
"...the airline will allow female flight attendants to marry within their first five years of employment, so long as they inform the airline of their plans." So what happens in year 6? Am I misreading this, or does it mean that if they don't get married in the first five years, they're out of luck?
I understand that people have to fly these airlines for business, but it would be great if people didn't support this sort of 7th century nonsense.