Air India offers a female-only seating section on a select number of flights. Will that continue and expand in the Tata era?
Air India “Gender-Sensitive” Seating Includes Reserved Rows Exclusively For Female Passengers
In 2o17, Air India began offering an area it called “gender-sensitive” seating onboard its domestic flights. At the time, the carrier described the policy as a way to provide more “comfort” to female passengers traveling alone:
“We will be reserving the third row — six seats — in the economy class of the aircraft for female passengers traveling alone. We feel, as national carriers, it is our responsibility to enhance comfort level to female passengers. There are a lot of female passengers who travel alone with us and we will be blocking a few seats for them.”
The context of this policy change was a harassment problem in India in which violence against women, including gang rape, remain serious issues. Air India estimates that roughly 10% of any passenger load constitutes females traveling solo.
Might this expand to more flights as Air India rebrands and reinvents itself in the Tata era? A recent internal memo suggests this is at least under consideration:
“To ensure the female guests traveling with us have a comfortable flight, we, as a company, are adopting a gender-sensitive seat assignment practice. A circular has been released with regards to the same.”
That circular apparently included instructions to flight attendants to proactively reseat female passengers, when possible, to avoid sitting between male passengers:
“In our endeavour to adopt the practice, cabin crew members should be mindful and discreet (but not limit themselves) while offering to reseat the below guests in case there are vacant seats available female passenger travelling alone seated between male passengers, mother with infant seated on centre seats could be relocated to a seat with bassinet location (preferably aisle) or window seat.”
Without commenting on whether this move is necessary or not, because I do not know, I find it interesting nevertheless.
Indian trains still have female-only carriages. Closer to home, Germany has female-only gyms or female-only nights at many high-end gyms. Gender discrimination is still alive and well. Did you notice that during the recent prisoner swap in Israel amid the brief cease-fire period, women and children were prioritized for release? I didn’t hear any outrage over that.
CONCLUSION
Air India has recently indicated it will continue and potentially expand female-only seating on its flights and now instructed flight attendants to take steps to proactively reseat female passengers who find themselves between male passengers.
We wouldn’t want anyone sitting near this guy would we?
image: Air India
Does that include men who identify as female?
Who would want to sit next to him????
It is funny how men are afraid of trans people. Grow up please.
Secure men aren’t afraid of trans people.
No one is afraid of trans people. That’s a red herring. The concern is whether women continue to have their spaces, sports, bathrooms, and other protected spaces.
Seems like it’s the airline wanting to say “we tried” to provide “more security/safety” for their female passengers when next there is an on-board sexual harassment or assault that becomes a PR issue for the airline. Personally, I think they should put up signs and announce that they have zero tolerance for sexual harassment and that all passengers and other travel stakeholders are subject to a zero tolerance policy for such violations and will otherwise face the full course of the law.
Given how uncouth talk has been in the Indian Parliament since Modi came into power —with ruling party Parliamentarians now even mocking people based on whether they suspect a guy to be circumcised and talking about other MPs as pimps — the India of today is definitely no more respectful of women and minorities today than it used to be. Even the parading and gang raping of stripped Christian Indian women in the country was subject to an attempt to bury the reports rather than to address the very serious and increasingly worse sexual violence that gets greenlighted or covered up by the ruling party in the country.
As much as and because I do love India, it’s seriously disappointing to see what has happened to the country as the internet took off in India and with it the porn consumption by Indian men skyrocketed.
Really? ” women and children first, and you didn’t hear any outrage over that”. I believe that is not gender discrimination and plays no part in this discussion. Children are prioritized because they are young. Last I checked babies were carried in the uterus hence giving us a small advantage a carers in a hostage swap.
As the world continues to devolve, and base behavior towards women becomes acceptable, expect more separation to occur. India may be leading the pack now but it is clearly not alone.
Also I would like a separate lady lav until men sit down to pee. One would think you could master that by adulthood.
We know that wouldn’t “fly” here in America where even guys with c#cks can compete as a woman. And it’s considered offensive to even ask by some.
The Mexico City subway has separate cars for women too. This happens all over the place. If women in India feel more comfortable with this, then I say “great.” I wish none of this was necessary, but it isn’t Air India’s responsibility to solve existing discrimination/harassment problems within society.
Is it the Spider-Man saying that “with great power comes great responsibility”? People in positions of privilege in the country do a public disservice to their nation when they don’t take a public stand against a public pattern of wrongdoing that impacts large groups of persons — in this case women, but also religious and ethnic minorities within at other times. But nowadays too many privileged actors generally either lack the moral courage to refuse to be part of the “go along (quietly or not) to get along “ gang or are so very gullible that they get manipulated into believing the lies and walking the course peddled by their hardline associates/compatriots with a long standing grudge to be advanced while circling the bandwagon. A corporate and national version of the “blue wall of silence” is really a shame, but in this case it’s a saffron wall of silence with small PR interludes at times that unfortunately amount to too little real good and too much defensiveness.
Good move Air India
This is a great offering and one I would support. Ive been very fortunate to have good travelling companions in my travels, but a friend had a horrible experience on Emirates, seated at the window with two Indian men blocking her exit to the passageway who constantly tried to speak to her, stared at her, and at on epoint even picked food off her tray to eat with their fingers and picked up her drink to drink from it. The stewardesses could not or would not help when she called them as the flight was full – they did approach several male passengers to explain the situation and ask them if theyd be willing to swop seats, bu tnot one of them would. She logged a complaint with the airline and got an spology.
This is a thing all over the world including Japan. I’d like to encourage more women to travel solo and this could help.
They also reserve a rest room for crew only, by plastering a paper on the door. Stating broken. I had the first hand experience when I flew from Chicago to New Delhi.