AS I’ve recently reported, British Airways is hoping to reduce its fuel bill in the years ahead by gradually replacing its ageing Boeing 747s with Airbus A380s. GoAir, in India, is taking a slightly different approach: it is going to stop hiring men as flight attendants.

The eight-year-old budget airline reckons that a less weighty work force will in future allow it to save 30m rupees ($500,000) a year from its fuel bill. Each kilo of weight costs 3 rupees per flying hour, apparently. The Times of Indiareports that the airline has around 130 male flight attendants at present—and they will not lose their jobs. But as GoAir plans to increase its fleet by 80 planes over the next seven years, it will need to hire around 2,000 more cabin crew and pilots. And the cabin crew will be women. To be fair to GoAir, it has a few other fuel-saving ideas, such as sharklets on its new planes' wing tips and smaller in-flight magazines. But, zanily enough, it's the women-only employment policy for new flight attendants that is attracting all the attention.