Indian airline provides option for female passengers to not sit beside men
Want to stay seated with the girlies throughout the flight? That won’t be a problem anymore. Solo travelers, especially female passengers, are now given the option to avoid sitting beside a male passenger during their flight thanks to this Indian airline.
Introduced by IndiGo, the feature was pilot-tested in their #GirlPower campaign to make a “travel experience more comfortable for our female passengers.” which started to roll out back in May.
According to the airline, the idea of launching the program underwent a series of research combined with customer’s opinions and feedback through the #GirlPower campaign.
“Technology is now enabling some things which were not possible in the past. We brought [the initiative] up as a test ... It has responded very well with our customers, but also internationally,” the airline’s CEO Pieter Elbers said.
After its successful tryout in the past months, the airline formally launched the feature this August and is now available upon booking of flights through their mobile app and website.
How does it work?
Upon the passenger's entry on the website or the mobile app, the airline will ask for the gender of the passenger. Female passengers will see pink seats if it was occupied by women and travelers of the opposite sex will not be able to see the pink-colored seats.
This option is available on all of their flights both local and international.
Prior to its actual rollout, the feature already received positive feedback from communities like Twitter and Reddit.
A Redditor said that she has had "some awkward and uncomfortable experiences while sitting next to men on planes," and so she "would readily choose sitting next to a woman if I had the option."
Another Redditor said that this is a "very good move" but sad that "it has come to this."
"Women should be and feel safe regardless of the people sitting next to them," the user continued.
"It's a shame that this has become such an endemic issue that we need to resort to gender segregation. But until awareness, sensitivity and education reach optimum levels, this is where we are at [I] guess," one more user added.