Russian airline says passengers don’t want overweight flight crew.

“Ninety-two per cent [of Aeroflot passengers] want to see stewardesses who fit into the clothes sizes we are talking about here,” said Pavel Danilin, a member of the Aeroflot’s public council, citing results from a survey, according to The Guardian.

“Aeroflot is a premium airline and part of the reason people pay for tickets is the appearance of its employees.”

The controversial comments were made at a press conference on Tuesday in response to two recent lawsuits, in which a group of female employees attempted to sue the airline for discrimination over their age, weight and appearance.

The group has labelled itself STS — a Russian abbreviation for “old, fat, ugly”.

They say Aeroflot moved them from prestigious long-haul flights to lower-paid domestic routes because of their physical appearance.

According to The Guardian, Evgenia Magurina, one of the complainants, claimed that last year all Aeroflot flight attendants were photographed, measured and in some cases weighed. Women who did not meet the requirements — under a Russian size 48 (roughly AUS 14) — were taken off higher-paid international routes.

Aeroflot won both court cases, and said in a statement in February that it never discriminated on the basis of appearance, age or weight and that the allegations against them were unfounded.

However, at the press conference, which was attended by The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Shaun Walker, the comments made by Aeroflot representatives seemed to acknowledge that they did have policies regarding the appearance of flight attendants.

Nikita Krichevsky, another member of Aeroflot’s public council, said it shouldn’t be regarded as salary docking but as an incentive to lose weight.

He accused the women of “trying to blacken the name of the state air company” and said they should be pleased the company cared about their health.

“I myself used to weigh 103kg, and now I weigh 80kg. I just corrected my eating habits and lost weight. I don’t understand why the request to be a particular size is unrealistic,” Krichevsky said according to The Guardian.

The newspaper also reported that later on Tuesday, Aeroflot released a statement saying that the two representatives had appeared at the press conference “on their own initiative” and their comments did not necessarily reflect the airline’s position.

It said they were “the personal view[s] of the members of the public council”.

“Aeroflot’s position was made clear in court where, as is well known, the cases of Magurova and Ierusalimskaya were dismissed,” the statement read.

The airline’s website lists Mr Danilin and Mr Krichevsky as members of its 25-person public council, The Guardian reported.