Wall Street Journal reports that Emirates flight attendants are weighed at interview...

... and other interesting titbits (or "tidbits" for American readers) such as the fact that they cannot eat in uniform, and that they must take passengers phone numbers when offered.

The article was in yesterday's print WSJ, and the article is online for subscribers (follow the link above). I used to have a free WSJ subscription thanks to frequent travel with Delta Airlines, but when it came up for renewal I could not justify keeping the subscription because, ironically, I was travelling so much. Articles like this make me miss the WSJ. Nowadays I read it when I am staying at hotels which give it for free (e.g. the Radisson at Washington Reagan Airport) and that is about it.

The article talks about the glamour and youth of Emirates flight attendants. I must be missing something, because when I flew with them, I was taking more notice of the excellent entertainment system on the Dubai-JFK flight (including all Top-10 UK chart songs for the past 20 years!). I think the reason is that, from my European perspective in between the US and the Middle East, the real story is not the youth and glamour of Emirates, but the lack of youth and glamour on US airlines (with a few exceptions: I recently flew the "lucky" Northwest Flight 777 to Las Vegas from Minneapolis, and it had some pretty glamourous female flight attendants, I remember, but that was an exception).

If Michael O'Leary from Ryanair reads that WSJ article, he may take up that "weigh the flight attendants at interview, and put them on a diet if they gain weight" idea as yet another way to keep Ryanair's flight costs down.