CAAP 19 Sep 2012
The BMI limit is none of the above.
The GCAA have no issue with a Class 1 medical being issued to any pilot with a BMI of 39.9 or lower.
However if your BMI is 30-39.9 then you will have to do fasting blood tests for each medical. They are specifically looking for what the refer to as comorbidities. Having one comorbidity is ok, two makes you borderline and three would likely get you extra tests such as a treadmill VO2 Max or similar. It is entirely subjective, like most things in Dubai! If you find the right doctor then you have no issue getting a medical with a BMI of 38 if you find the wrong doctor then I know pilots with BMIs of 31 being told they risk suspension.
Comorbidities are basically risks of you dying so if you have high blood pressure, heriditary risk, waist circ greater than 102 cms, high LDL, high triglycerides, etc abnormal ECG, etc, each one of those will count against you.
If you are the ex rugby type of body i.e lots of muscle but low body fat then BMI alone is no issue.
I personally have a BMI or 34 and hvae been up to 38 and have had never had any issue or conditions placed on me medically.
EK have a hard rule as a company of 30 or below to join. It has been waived in time of need but not often. FZ made me and a few others I know personally get below 30 to join stating it was a company requirement but it is not and never has been a GCAA requirement. Anyone who tells you different is misinformed.
The GCAA CAAP 19 issued Oct 2010 revised Sep 2012 is a 194 page document available for download from the Authority website. In that document page 37 chapter 5.11 it is black and white specific as to what the standards are.
The flaw in the cunning plan is that it is written in English. That basically means that some people choose to interpret it however they want. Most of our recruiting staff are unaware of what the actual regulations are and have arbitarily turned away pilots simply based on BMI when they likely would have been fine. That said we have two cadets, at least, to my knowledge who I have spoken to and they had BMIs over 30 one over 35 on joining and never had a problem. So it completely depends on what colour underwear the recruiter is wearing, which doctor you see during the interview phase or use to do your medical.
One particular clinic here has a reputation for making money out of extra tests. Placing pilots careers at risk and placing stress on their families. I have never used them as I avoided them due to reputation but I have friends as fit as a butchers dog who had weeks of medical tests, had to carry around personal ECGs for 24/48 hr tests all at their expense to be told they were fine 4000AED later by a "specialist", often holding the same passport as the referring clinician.
The chief pilot doesn't have a BMI under 30, that said the chief pilot doesnt have a medical so it doesnt matter anymore to him.
So worry not about your weight unless you are unfit as well as heavy for height, the whole England rugby team are pretty much obese according to the 1950s test group used to make the original BMI scale. Find a doctor who gets that Thai men, Fijian men, Chinese men, Sri Lankans etc come in very different frames and you will have no issue.
If you are out here and looking then it isn't hard to find the correct doctor just ask a larger framed pilot where they go and you'll be fine! I personally have not seen a refusal of a Medical in my 4yrs of anyone I know or have heard of.
Across the runway on the other hand they love grounding their pilots!
To be fair your weight isn't the real issue. Unless you are unemployed your mental health is the thing that you should question if you choose to come here. Like has been said by the same contributors for years in this very thread. It can be a good life, however statistically you have to be lucky to benefit in the way that you expect as your actual ability has nothing to do with your progress in this airline.
There are guys here who you would follow into the cockpit purely out of curiosity who make Captain on minimum hours after 18 months and then proceed to scare the bejesus out of FOs until they get eventually get caught out or you forget as you have upgraded yourself. There are some fantastic skippers who are ignored and rideen over by mgt as they hate being proven wrong especially when they are. There however are guys who are good enough to fly fastjets in the RAF, good enough for British Ariways and in many cases have already been Skippers in other respectable enough airlines who simply fall at some ridiculous hurdle or another whilst sub standard DECs who would never get through the upgrade here are hired.
Most of the internal upgrades are amongst the best Captains we have once you are out of the top 100 seniority (the original DECs were a very different ilk and are mostly excellent)
It is easy to tell who the excellent ones are, if the management ignore or sidleine them then the more they talk them down the better they are. The best of them mostly leave unless they really don't need to be here in which case they stay for the A scale salary and roster!
Last edited by Vortex Thing; 14th Jun 2015 at 20:37.