WE refer to the articles "Protect rights of stewardesses" and "Airline's crew rules embarrassing" (NST, Jan 8).

Our recruitment of female cabin crew emphasises a number of factors: personality traits, excellent general knowledge, appropriate height and weight, as well as the absence of any handicap.

Beauty was not the attribute, as benchmarked by travellers around the world who voted this group of employees as the "World's Best Cabin Staff" for four consecutive years from 2001 to 2004, and again last year in annual independent surveys conducted by Skytrax of Britain.

Malaysia Airlines management and employee unions regularly hold dialogues on employee matters and based on mutual consent, changes to the collective agreements are made.

In the case of employment conditions for female cabin crew, the management and the Malaysian Airline System Employees' Union (Maseu) had agreed to revise the terms and conditions of employment effective from May 2005.
These revisions enhanced the benefits of Malaysian female cabin crews and superseded the terms and conditions in the collective agreement between Malaysia Airlines and Maseu for the Sept 1, 2002 to Aug 31, 2005 period.

Under the new provisions, female cabin crews are allowed maternity leave benefits for up to three surviving children. Previously, they were only allowed maternity leave for two surviving children.

The special gratuity scheme on retirement was also increased by 25 per cent for every completed year of service.

Female in-flight supervisors, chief stewardesses and leading stewardesses, on attaining their retirement age at 45, are given the option to continue serving.

Malaysia Airlines will offer them a ground job until the age of 55.

The revised conditions agreed in May 2005 were incorporated in the current collective agreement and had been formalised between Malaysia Airlines and Maseu.

With regard to the assertion that the collective agreement signed between the company and Maseu is discriminatory, we wish to clarify that it had been unanimously decided in the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Federal Court in Malaysia that the national carrier's actions, policies and collective agreements were in line with the Federal Constitution, and not discriminatory against female employees as in the decision of Beatrice Fernandez vs Malaysian Airline System & Anor [2005] 2 CLJ 713.

Nevertheless, as a government-linked company, we will continue to engage with employees, unions and other stakeholders in matters relating to employment terms and conditions.