What do you do when you take a big step toward advancing equal rights? Congratulate yourself of course! The president of new Thai airline PC Air is justifiably proud and called himself a “pioneer” after hiring transsexuals as flight attendants.

Peter Chan says PC Air has hired six of the “third sex” for crew and will continue recruitment driven by a belief in equal rights, Yahoo News reports.

“I think these people can have many careers, not just in the entertainment business, and many of them have a dream to be an air hostess. I just made their dream come true,” he told AFP. “Our society has changed — it’s evolution. I’m an pioneer, and I’m sure there will be (other) organizations following my idea.”

For those not in the know, Thailand is a veritable haven for transsexuals, with one of the largest populations of such individuals and a reputation for cheap and quick sex change techniques.

However you don’t have to be a transsexual to work with PC Air, you’ve just got to pass the normal tests of having useful language skills and good service.

“When it’s their dream job or the job they love, they can do it even better,” Chan said.

Out of the more than 100 transsexual job applicants, one of those hired includes Thanyarat “Film” Jiraphatpakorn, winner of the Miss Tiffany beauty pageant in 2007, according to a report in Thailand’s Nation newspaper.

“At first I thought they would just take applications but not actually recruit us, as happened at other places before,” said the new flight attendant, 23.

PC Air hopes to be hitting the friendly skies by April with charter flights across Asia.

Thai air boss hails first transsexual cabin crew [Yahoo News]

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