Pretty faces fill Chinese air space

BEIJING — Fly on a Chinese airline and you will be pampered by flight attendants who look eerily alike. They are young, beautiful and practically the same height.

This is not a coffee-tea-or-me stereotype, but the result of a rigorous selection process that is more beauty pageant than equal-opportunity job interview.

If you're older than 24, don't bother applying.

If you aren't taller than the average Chinese woman, go home.

And if your legs are a little heavy, don't call.

Sound like a throwback to the dark ages of workplace discrimination?

In the world's fastest-growing aviation market, entry barriers for flight attendants are not only tolerated — they're flaunted as symbols of excellence.

"A lot of Chinese passengers judge the quality of airlines based on the quality of their flight attendants, meaning are they pretty or not pretty," said Luo Man, a media director at China Southern, the country's largest carrier.

Organizers of next year's Beijing Olympics have gone down a similar path.

Zhao Dongming, director of the cultural-activities department of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said Tuesday hundreds of young women are needed to serve as hostesses for award ceremonies, but only those who are tall, beautiful and have good figures need apply.

"We have certain requirements for their height, since they have to present the awards to our athletes," Zhao told The Washington Post. Candidates should be 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, he said. "That's above average."

"Of course, the girls should be young and pretty," Zhao said.

Good looks are such a commodity these days that China Southern airlines has put its annual recruitment drive on reality TV. While men are not excluded from the jobs, only women are featured in the on-television selection process. The show, funded in part by the airline, follows a six-month audition — complete with swimsuit competition and a race involving luggage, makeup brushes and drink trays — through several major Chinese cities. Thousands of young women line up for the chance to compete for 180 openings.

China Southern's Web site for the show, which provides news and information on the auditions, has had more than 1 million hits.

"This is every little girl's dream," said Lu Ju, 20, who has flown three times in her life. "I want to be beautiful like the flight attendants. They can see the world and go places most people can't."

During a recent taping of the program in a posh resort on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, Lu and other contestants lined up with military precision. All wore tight shorts and snug pastel T-shirts.

In teams of two, they raced against each other, one team member skipping rope and the other lugging a heavy suitcase. Then, off-camera, they changed from shorts to the button-down blouse, pencil skirt and black heels of a flight attendant. Back before the cameras as the clock ticked, they grabbed trays of drinks to present to the judges.

"I think this kind of contest is fair," said Li Guoping, 47, mother of Wang Jing, 22, who has never flown before and traveled by train to the competition. "This is a service industry. A lot of other Chinese airlines have flight attendants who are very attractive. People always talk about which airline has the best-looking flight attendants."

Singapore Airlines, for example, has built its reputation on the beauty and hospitality of the sarong-wearing staff known in its global ad campaigns as "Singapore Girls."

Chinese airlines are so youth-oriented that many in the cabin crew stop flying in their 30s. China Southern says it has the oldest staff, with retirement age capped at 45.

"My parents worry this is an unstable job without a long future," said Wang Wenjing, 21, a college junior at the contest. "I don't want to be just another office secretary."

"I find it very offensive," said Veda Shook, international vice president for the Association of Flight Attendants, the world's largest labor union for cabin crew members, representing more than 55,000 employees at 20 U.S. airlines.

"When a carrier views their selection process as a beauty pageant, it's really a setback to our profession on a global scale."

Not that Americans haven't been there. It wasn't until 1971 that it became illegal for U.S. airlines to refuse to hire men as flight attendants or ban married women.

Chinese airline officials say their industry is young and that it will take time for the public to move beyond the superficial. Until recently, traveling by air was a privilege reserved for government officials and very rich people. The first flight attendants were picked not so much for their looks as their political reliability.

But that is changing fast.

As Chinese people get richer, domestic air traffic could soar nearly fivefold in two decades, analysts said. To meet the demand, China will have to buy about 3,400 new aircraft, quadrupling the current fleet and making the nation the second-largest aviation market in the world after the United States.

Demand for new flight attendants is so great that a cottage industry has emerged of academies promising to produce star-quality cabin crews. The courses can range from etiquette and psychology to basic English and geography. Once flight attendants are hired by the airlines, they typically receive additional safety and emergency training.