Kuwait Airways Accused of Racial Discrimination in Flight Attendant Hiring

In a statement to El Diario, a Spanish woman named Maria says she went through the entire selection process for Kuwait Airways to become a flight attendant, but an external recruiter informed her that the airline does not hire "dark-skinned" personnel. "I’m sorry to have to announce that Kuwait Airways will not be hiring dark-skinned cabin crew," a Meccti recruiter wrote in an English message sent via WhatsApp. Maria received a second message informing her that the decision came from the airline. After being rejected, she was immediately removed from the WhatsApp group the recruiter had created for all the candidates who had passed the selection process. "I felt denigrated, discriminated against, like a commodity. It really affected me," Maria said.

Kuwait Airways is at the center of a controversy in the same recruitment session. The candidates for the flight attendant position were asked to undress in their underwear, reports the Spanish media. Maria was one of these candidates and remembers being inspected by a recruiter in her underwear: "He looked at me completely, from top to bottom. He also looked in my mouth." The recruiters said they were looking for "scars, birthmarks or tattoos," according to a source at El Diario.

In a statement to Insider, the legal representatives of Meccti explained that the company had subcontracted the recruitment process to a Moroccan company called Meiservices, which, according to them, is "ultimately responsible for how the process was implemented and executed." "Meccti does not provide, in its collaboration agreements with third parties to carry out selection processes, any type of directive that could imply any discriminatory practice based on race," the company said in a statement.