How to keep air hostesses young and cute
Nok Air Air hostesses pose with CEO Patee Sarasin during the launch of Nok Air’s international operations. The Bangkok-based budget airline is known for its brigade of slender, attractive and fair-skinned air hostesses.
In much of Asia, female air hostesses can't just get by on courtesy and steady pouring hands during turbulence. They're also often expected to look like Maxim models.
How do airlines keep up a forever young stable of hostesses?
They "retire" them by 30, according to a business feature in the Bangkok Post.
The CEO of Nok Air, an airline that flaunts its foxy hostesses at every turn, told the newspaper that his female cabin crew employees are out by 30 and aided by management in finding new jobs at international airlines.
That way, he said, they're still attractive enough to land jobs at other airlines that demand less from their looks.
This policy, he told the Bangkok Post, "has nothing to do with sexist attitudes, but rather marketing."
Fully aware of this policy, Thai women in their early 20s are marching on Nok Air… to compete for air hostess jobs.
The airline's recent stewardess casting call recently drew 4,000 applicants for just 41 positions. Here are the winners on YouTube squealing with delight.
Strict beauty requirements have solidified air hostesses' sexy social status, as have Asian soap operas featuring hostesses as love interests and saucy vixens.
Even in the 1980s, Singapore Airlines promoted itself through the "Singapore Girl": a fetching lass who, according to this old TV spot, lights candles and stares longingly into the distance between flights.