Air India offers special seating options for solo female travellers, mothers with infants
Air India said it had been brought to the company’s notice that the women passengers travelling alone felt uncomfortable when assigned a middle seat
Air India has said it will now offer alternative seating for solo female travellers and mothers on their flights. In a directive issued on Tuesday, the airline said such passengers should be preferably given an aisle or a window seat at their convenience, Hindustan Times reported on Thursday
The airline directed the crew to extend the offer to children travelling alone and seated in centre seats.
“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,” Air India said in the statement.
The step was being taken to avoid any kind of issues between male and female passengers, Air India officials said on condition of anonymity.
Air India said it had been brought to the company’s notice that the women passengers travelling alone felt uncomfortable when assigned a middle seat.
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“The airline has termed it to be a step under its ‘gender-sensitive seat assignment practice’, and has also asked the concerned department to ensure that no middle seats are assigned to solo women travellers when both window and aisle seats are occupied by male passengers,” HT reported quoting people familiar with the development in the airline.
“Every flight has at least 10% solo women travellers. This directive may not be an effective one,” said one of the airline employees.
“Rather than coming up with such a directive, which in all probability will lead to confusion, the airline should direct their concerned department to handle the situation at the booking level itself,” Hindustan Times quoted aviation expert Mohan Ranganathan as saying.
Ranganathan said, “If the airline has taken a decision in the name of being gender sensitive then the airline should not cause confusion and chaos by introducing such a directive and allot aisle seats to solo women passengers while they book their air tickets.”
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Business NewsNewsIndiaAir India offers special seating options for solo female travellers, mothers with infants
First Published:5 Oct 2023, 07:45 PM IST
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