By Emerald Catron
AOL.com

A certain Asian airline seems trapped in the '60s, that magical time when airline "stewardesses" were best known as desirable sex objects.

Air India fired 9 of its flight attendants for being "grossly" overweight (surely they could have chosen a better adjective), and the case has now reached the Indian supreme court. The stewardesses, who are reportedly between 24 and 70 pounds overweight, were grounded for being "medically unfit" to fly.

The airline claims that the women failed to lose weight when asked, and that there were no jobs on the ground to move them to. The women deny that they were ever notified or even asked to lose any weight.

Initially, a lower court agreed that heavy flight attendants presented a safety hazard, but the plaintiffs point out that Air India also issued recent edicts against hiring women with blemishes or bad teeth. The BBC speculated that the firings may be a bid by Air India to keep pace with other airlines, which apparently employ younger, hotter women who dress in Western clothing as opposed to traditional saris.

It's certainly not the first time looks have been cause for suspension or firing. In 2005, an Atlantic City casino came under fire when it demanded that cocktail waitresses lose weight or be suspended without pay. The year before that, Abercrombie and Fitch was sued for its alleged policy of hiring only attractive white people for the sales floor and relegating non-blue-eyed-blonde-jock-types to the stock rooms.

Safety aside, we really don't care what our flight attendants look like -- as long as they're liberal with the peanuts and don't judge us when they hand over our second in-flight cocktail, we're happy.