Dhaka: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has grounded 140 flight attendants, both male and female, for being overweight, according to reports. The flag carrier also excluded them from promotions and the duty roster for July flights.

The flight attendants could not adopt a strict diet plan amid the coronavirus pandemic which led to their grounding, reports added.

However, a PIA spokesperson denied that the number of flight attendants grounded overweight concerns is 140, and said it is actually 85 instead. He also said the decision was taken after continuous complaints.

The spokesperson added that the airline has issued warnings multiple times to the overweight flight attendants before taking the action.

In 2019, the national carrier of Pakistan had mulled over a proposal to offload its overweight flight attendants from international flights.

For this purpose, the PIA administration had announced to gradually reduce the waiver of 30 pounds of excess weight to zero pounds in upcoming months.

Meanwhile, the Upper House of Pakistan's Parliament was informed earlier in June by the country's aviation ministry that the PIA had incurred a huge loss due to the fake license case. The PIA incurred an estimated deficit of PKR 7.9 billion.

Last year, it was revealed that over 200 pilots in Pakistan were holding fake licenses as they never appeared for exams personally. The disclosure was part of the results of the probe done on the plane crash in Karachi.