India budget airline IndiGo has a new feature offering women to select seats that aren't beside men. When creating an online booking, the system marks a seat as pink if it's been booked by a woman. Smartly, male customers don't see that information.
"Technology is now enabling some things which were not able in the past," says CEO Pieter Elbers. "We brought [the initiative] up as a test … It has responded very well with our customers, but also internationally."
I'm sure it has given the problem of manspreading and disgusting cases of men getting handsy (or much worse) on flights.
From CNBC:
IndiGo's representative said the booking feature is based on market research and aligns "with our #GirlPower ethos."
But she didn't directly respond to CNBC's questions about whether the service was introduced because of reports of recent in-flight incidents involving men — including a 2023 incident where a drunk man urinated on a female passenger during an Air India flight from New York to Delhi.
Other incidents involve male passengers who touch women on flights. On an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Guwahati in September 2023, a male passenger lifted the armrest between him and a female passenger and touched her inappropriately while she was asleep, according to the Indian news outlet The Economic Times.
Previously:
• This $27,000 airplane 'seat' is actually a shower, bedroom, and living room
• Man buys 3 airplane tickets — one for himself and two for his humongous doggo (video)
• These standing airplane 'seats' may be tomorrow's economy class
