Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways' cheif executive, has denied claims in an interview with CNN that the national airliner maintains a policy that require female cabin crew members to ask for permission before getting married.

Al Baker was interviewed over the phone by CNN's business anchor, Richard Quest, about some allegations that claims Qatar Airways only hires single female cabin crew and they have to sign a contract that prevents them from getting married until five years into their employment.

Al Baker denied these allegations and responded by saying, "That is a load of bulls---." He added that these allegations were being made because there are no unions in Qatar, which is bothering the competitors.

"Our work practices are very progressive, people have all the rights that they require and [the] rumours being circulated [are] absolutely untrue," Al Baker added.

In the past, the airline was accused of requiring female flight attendants to inform superiors as soon as they know they are pregnant, which could lead to them losing their jobs.

Al Baker said inspectors from the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) had visited his airline and found "that all these rumours are unsubstantiated and just created to paint a bad picture of Gulf carriers".

However, Al Bakers has been found contradicting his previous statements. He said the contracts were to ensure the cabin crew did their jobs and there were not enough ground positions to allow pregnant flight attendants to temporarily take up another role with the company. [CNN]

In 2014, Al Baker did not deny at the time that Qatar Airways sometimes ended the contracts of pregnant cabin crew, saying that the carrier only had a limited number of ground roles it could offer pregnant crew, who are unable to fly due to health concerns. [DohaNews]

According to comments on social media and forums, some ex-employees of Qatar Airways have confirmed that these allegations are true.

Watch the interview on CNN.

Were/are you a flight attendant on Qatar Airways? Can anyone confirm these allegations?