Airlines show preference for female staff

74 percent of domestic cabin crews were women; their average age is 24

China's airline industry continues to have a strong preference for hiring young females, especially as flight attendants, according to the top aviation authority.

The first report on flight attendants released by the information center of the Civil Aviation Administration of China on Wednesday said that, as of the end of last year, there were 103,397 flight attendants in China, an increase of 9,638 over 2017. Of those, 74 percent were women.

"Airlines want to appear more high-end than their competitors to add value to their services," said Liu Shuan, a professor of sociology and gender studies at Renmin University of China. "To do this, they market their product as luxurious and desirable, with beautiful women effectively transmitting that message."

The practice is common for airlines around the world, she added.

The United States, the world's largest aviation market, had 93,000 flight attendants at the end of 2016, nearly 76 percent of whom were female, according to the US Department of Labor.

The report said the median age of flight attendants of both genders in China is 24. There is a much smaller proportion of senior and experienced flight attendants in China, which is unlike Europe and the US, it said.

According to the US Census Bureau, the median age of flight attendants in the country in 2016 was 45.3.

Former China Southern Airlines flight attendant Liu Qian, a 32-year-old male, said many young people want to be cabin crew members as their first job after graduation, since it pays well and they can travel a lot. But the low threshold and repetitive work can also easily bore young people who have bigger aspirations.

"It's a job that demands a high level of physical fitness, since we have to take many long-distance international flights. It gets more and more tiring as you get older. So, like most of my colleagues, I quit two years ago to protect my health," he said.