Shanghai Street View: Aviation Aunties
Most people probably haven’t felt too charitable towards China’s major airlines this past week, following numerous flight delays and cancellations at the end of the National Day holiday due to huge downpours during Typhoon Fitow. I’m personally not a big fan in either of Shanghai’s 2 biggest carriers, China Eastern (HKEx: 670; Shanghai: 600115; NYSE: CEA) and Spring Airlines, mostly due to past bad experiences with both.
But I wanted to take this week to offer some rare praise for each of these companies, following their recent decision to break rank with industry standards and do the unthinkable by raising the minimum age for new flight attendants.
Some might say this adjustment, which looks relatively minor by western standards, is more market-oriented due to a lack of qualified singles in their 20s that the airlines usually prefer. But from my perspective, this kind of move is long overdue, and should be a first step that airlines and other industries take to remove the sexism, ageism and general bias towards good looking people that permeates Chinese corporate culture.
Perhaps what I’m writing is partly due to my own age, since at 49 I’m certainly no spring chicken and my advanced years would probably exclude me from consideration at many Chinese companies. But more fundamentally, I’ve always found it a bit distasteful that Chinese are required to disclose things like their age, height and include personal photos on many of their job applications.
Before I go any further, let’s take a look at the ground-breaking moves by Shanghai’s 2 leading airlines. Spring was the more radical of the pair, launching a campaign last month to hire new flight attendants as old as 45 – nearly my age. (English article) China Eastern liberalized its own hiring policy back in March, seeking to hire new attendants as old as 32. (Chinese article) I couldn’t find any references to previous requirements, but wording from the reports suggests past applicants had to be in their 20s and that single and childless candidates were also preferred.
I’m being slightly sarcastic in calling the moves ground-breaking, as these changes are really quite small and still exclude a huge portion of potential applicants. But from a mindset perspective, this change is actually quite significant as it reflects an important first step in dismantling the stereotype that all Chinese flight attendants must be peppy, attractive 20-somethings.
That said, there’s still much work to be done in making recruitment standards more professional and not based on irrelevant factors like people’s ages, looks or marital status. Reflecting the typical mindset, one article on the change at China Eastern playfully refers to these “older” flight attendants as kongsao, roughly equivalent to “flight sister-in-law”, invoking an older, more maternal image. The same report says China Eastern would still require all applicants to be 163-174 centimeters tall, and that applicants with children older than 2 would receive preference over ones with infant children.
Another report cited a Spring Airlines official saying the company made its decision because older women looked kinder and were more considerate than younger ones.
I know it’s probably a bit unfair of me to bring western standards to this discussion, especially in a society where the concept of modern, profit-based companies is just 2 decades old. But these kind of hiring requirements would instantly attract a flood of anti-discrimination lawsuits in the US, where such practices are usually forbidden by law.
Having lived in China for much of the last two decades, I can say how I and many of my western friends have always found a certain level of entertainment in typical classified job ads not only in China but also in Taiwan and even Hong Kong.
Such ads typically require applicants to give their age, height and marital status, along with other personal information that often seems irrelevant to their ability to do a job. But the most unusual requirement is the one for a personal photo, which seems to imply that attractive people will get preference for jobs over less attractive ones.
I personally welcome this change at China Eastern and Spring Airlines, mostly because I feel just a bit safer knowing that someone older and more mature will be able to assist me and others in the unlikely event of an emergency. Perhaps I’ll even try to take more flights on these 2 airlines to show my support for their progressive actions.
While there’s still much work to do, I also have to say that I’m happy to see this kind of initiative is coming out of 2 leading companies based in Shanghai – arguably China’s most international city and certainly one of its most progressive. Hopefully other companies both here and nationwide will follow suit by phasing out many of their irrelevant requirements for new hires, bringing the country more into line with global standards.
