India’s largest budget carrier, IndiGo, is the first airline to trial a feature that lets female passengers book seats next to other women to avoid sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a man in a move designed to make flying more comfortable for female passengers, according to a CNBC report.
The airline’s booking process is fairly standard except for the seat map which highlights seats occupied by women with the color pink. This information is not visible to male passengers, according to the airline, CNBC reported. IndiGo did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment on the new feature.
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I wish this existed but for avoiding having to sit near children.
Unfortunately, kids can’t go in the cargo hold. Something about needing air and warmth.
The cargo holds on commercial flights are pressurized and heated. I can’t imagine passengers would take kindly to their luggage being subjected to 0.3x atmospheric pressure at -55°C.
Yeah, sorry about that.
Edit: actually though, I wouldn’t mind being seated in something like a “family” section. It really is hard to keep babies and toddlers still and quiet on a plane (or anywhere), and I always feel bad for the people sitting next to us.
It doesn’t help when airlines split people up for not paying the “don’t get split all over the fucking plane” charge.
Then you end up with kids running between parents and standing all over people.
Honestly fuck airlines for making basic things an optional extra. It costs them literally nothing to sit a family all together.
Every time I book a flight I get so mad because there are so many little things that are up charges that should be default.
Do Indian men have a reputation for being inappropriately forward with women? There was a meme that read “every app is a dating app if you’re Indian enough”
I don’t think that’s an Indian men thing, I think that’s a predatory men around the world thing.
“Inappropriately forward” is a very polite way to put it. I feel like at least once a month there’s a new story out of India about a gang rape or something.
To be fair India has the biggest population on earth, like 5+ times US population. Per capita statistics would be more interesting here.
With a topic as sensitive and biased against the victims as this, it’s hard to get accurate data - see https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country
Have you like, ignored every second piece of information coming out of india the last decades?
They have a terrible issue with misogyny, there are countless stories of rape and other forms of assault on any kind of women (and girls). Indians, foreigners, none are safe, even with men accompanying them for protection. One or two guys can’t do much against a rape mob.
India is probably the first country I would warn a woman away from if she were looking for vacation destinations. Followed by islamic countries.
Mm idk about that. Yes there is a lot of violence against women in India. Generally, the Indians flying are not gonna be the ones doing that. Secondly, there is a lot of violence against women all over the world, it’s not just an India thing. Hell half the US political system is trying to give women the death penalty for the consequences of being raped. Or just for deciding they don’t want kids.
Not denying violence against women is an issue elsewhere too, but you would be hard pressed to find such a staggering density of sexual violence, in rather public areas, committed by groups of men for little to no provocation other than a woman being in the wrong place.
Now I am not saying all Indian men are rapists of course, but there certainly is evidence of a system wide, cultural aspect creating and enabling this behavior in a way rarely seen elsewhere.
Yeah my sister went to India a few years back by herself and while thankfully nothing terrible happened to her, she said she would never go back. Just walking around she said the streets are majority men and they are not shy about staring at any woman (especially someone who was clearly a foreigner). Of course, parts of the trip were cool but definitely not the place to be travelling alone as a woman.
Others commented about misogyny etc. in India miss the fact that India is (a) not a monolith & (b) flights are too expensive for 80% of India’s population (yes, wealth disparity in India is that bad). So the men on flights are less likely to grope women than let’s say a man on a train.
I asked my Indian colleagues about this, and they said they’d use this preference for space (not purely safety). One of them also said men smell worse than women so she’d prefer a woman next to her.
India is one of those cultures that still beats female rape victims to death
Okay but then men are allowed to fart openly and take our shirts off in the no-women section while they drink chamomile tea and read thought provoking books about how they are okay just the way they are.
The airline’s booking process is fairly standard except for the seat map which highlights seats occupied by women with the color pink. This information is not visible to male passengers, according to the airline, CNBC reported.
What’s to stop a man from claiming to be female to see the map of where women are sitting, and then booking an adjacent seat themselves?
You pick your seat after the booking process, where you have to enter your details which does include sex. Even if you enter it wrong just to pick a seat you won’t be able to enter the airport because they check that at the gate. Whether you are the same person whose ticket you are carrying.
I was thinking first would be the fake booking to find where the women were sitting, then switch browsers/clear cookies/whatever and book with the real details.
Yes but men wouldn’t be able to book those seats unless all the other seats are taken.
At least that is what happens on the bus seats here.
I’d assume Indian airlines has an ID check,l and men aren’t going to get a surgery and go through the process of changing their legal gender just to creep on women. This is also the same argument used against trans people in the bathroom debate, and while you probably didn’t mean to, you are parroting the ideas of transphobes.
