Friday, August 23, 2024 IndiGo’s new gender-specific seating policy, allowing women to choose seatmates by gender, has ignited a heated debate on social media platforms. A new policy by a major airline permitting female passengers to select the gender of their seatmates has sparked debate across social media. IndiGo, India’s leading budget airline, implemented this policy for all its flights starting in August.
Under this new system, women can view the gender of passengers who have pre-selected seats, with female passengers indicated by a pink color, during the online check-in process. This allows women to make more informed decisions about where they prefer to sit. However, male passengers are not given access to this information and can only see which seats are available.
The rollout of this booking policy has received mixed reactions from social media users, with opinions varying widely on its implementation. Even before the introduction of this airline policy, trains and buses in India had already implemented measures allowing women to book seats next to other women, a strategy reportedly aimed at reducing the risk of sexual assault. In the United States, concerns over in-flight safety have also been highlighted this year.
The FBI issued a warning about the increasing prevalence of sexual assault during flights, describing it as a “ serious federal crime on the rise .” In 2023 alone, the agency initiated 96 investigations into reported cases of sexual assault occu.
