To think it’s about time all women were Ms or Mrs following this plane error

[AtlasPine]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/09/tui-plane-serious-incident-every-miss-on-board-child-weight-birmingham-majorca

The confusion caused here could have had dire consequences.

Isn’t it about time we dropped the title ‘Miss’ to differentiate between adult women and girls?

Not this again!
Hasn't Ms /Miss etc been done to death on here

The problem with using a date of birth is that UK mainly uses dd/mm/yyyy

This is very basic stuff and should absolutely not be a problem for any well programmed system. In any case transposing the month and date in this scenario would have next to no impact as the year would give a good enough indication of age.

The issue here is that the programming work has been outsourced to another country which doesn’t understand UK customs. A British programmer wouldn’t have made this mistake. It’s a prime example of the benefits of paying a little extra for a British made product.

I use Miss or Mrs, whatever I fancy on that particular day.

I don't understand Ms. Still don't get it. Thought it's short for Miss.

I don't think this issue is anything to do with titles and everything to do with profit squeezing and the ridiculous cost of flight.

This issue is further compounded, I think, by the fact that as the article states
"... 38 passengers on the flight being allocated a child’s “standard weight” of 35kg as opposed to the adult figure of 69kg."

But actually in the UK now, the average weight of an adult is (roughly) 79kg. For women only it's more than 72kg. The 35kg figure for kids is probably unreflective of the average child on a Tui flight, too.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I use Miss or Mrs, whatever I fancy on that particular day.

I don't understand Ms. Still don't get it. Thought it's short for Miss.

It’s a title which just denotes female, not unmarried/married female.

Like Mr, but for women. Not rocket science.

I really wish English had gone the way of other European languages like French, German, Spanish, etc., where the traditional married title (madam, Frau, etc) has become the title for adult women, and the unmarried title is used for girls. No need to tell the world your marital state.

@MimiPigeon

The issue here is that the programming work has been outsourced to another country which doesn’t understand UK customs. A British programmer wouldn’t have made this mistake. It’s a prime example of the benefits of paying a little extra for a British made product.

Wherever it was made, as the flights are to other countries, you would always have to translate this form into other languages. So you'd have different translation problems, such as the issue I described upthread that many countries would translate "Miss/Mrs/Ms/Mr" as "X/X/X/Y" because there are only two titles for men and women. British nationalism really wouldn't improve something that is an international issue.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I use Miss or Mrs, whatever I fancy on that particular day.

I don't understand Ms. Still don't get it. Thought it's short for Miss.

It's a title that is used to avoid denoting ones marital status - not difficult to understand.

Most airlines in the UK use M/F/CHD/INF. A person's marital status is of no interest. Male and female weights are different as are children's and infants. If a company fail to input date of births into their reservation system this can cause the error that was seen with TUI. When the names are downloaded into the checkin system the system generates their weights based on their date of birth. A child will be classed as a child up until the age of 12, an infant will be classed as an infant up until the age of 2.

I've worked in the airline business gor over 20 years 😁

To be fair as former cabin crew (not for TUI!) but i think if people really knew what went on prior to boarding an aircraft most people would never fly again 😅

@BigGreen

YANBU time to remove Miss as an option!

Why? I know many women who use ‘Miss’ as a title through choice.

To me "Ms" always seems to indicate the person using it is insecure, or at least they they believe there is something inferior with one or other of the traditional titles.

I use Ms, have done so for years my marital status isn't anyone else's business. My daughter has used Ms since she was 16, for the same reason. Ms has nothing to do with divorce, and I'm not insecure. I also have never changed my name, don't see why I would.

Back to this plane issue, I feel the simplest solution is a tick box for "adult" or "child". Doesn't need to have any connection to titles, and doesn't need to tie to a DOB, when different countries use different dating styles.

I sometimes think that luggage weight limits are unfair. We should be weighed with our luggage, and smaller people therefore get to take more luggage than bigger people.

@poshme

I sometimes think that luggage weight limits are unfair. We should be weighed with our luggage, and smaller people therefore get to take more luggage than bigger people.

But smaller people need smaller clothes.

I'm Dr - I wonder how much I'm supposed to weigh? :)

Seriously, though, all they need is information about sex (F or M) - although I imagine that this would be controversial amongst some.

@poshme

I sometimes think that luggage weight limits are unfair. We should be weighed with our luggage, and smaller people therefore get to take more luggage than bigger people.

As a "smaller person" I would benefit from this, so you'd think I'd be all for it. but If I was an aviation business owner I would have to disagree with the proposal only because the backlash would be huge - there's only so much Ryan Air marketing you can adopt before people vote with their feet.

@Bunglemom

To be fair as former cabin crew (not for TUI!) but i think if people really knew what went on prior to boarding an aircraft most people would never fly again 😅

Oooh - do tell!!

No.

@stuckinarutatwork

Wow. The standard weights use seem a bit out anyway. It doesn't seem very reliable.

Average adult weight 69kg? Really?? That's only just over 10.5 stone. For a nation with a large percentage of the population that's overweight, I very much doubt that's a good guess.

Mind you, imagine getting everyone to step on the scales at check in (I've had to do this when flying in small aircraft overseas - we even had to sit in certain seats according to our size to balance the load!).

Well, in a larger plane it doesn't need to be individual weighing. A scale that accommodated say, 20 people plus their bags would be far quicker anyway.

No one would need to know individual weights.

@skirk64

YABU. Women have the choice to be called Miss, Mrs or Ms. There is nothing right or wrong with choosing any of them.

To me "Ms" always seems to indicate the person using it is insecure, or at least they they believe there is something inferior with one or other of the traditional titles.

Ha! I use Ms or Dr. I’m not insecure, nor do I think there’s anything ‘inferior’ about Miss or Mrs, I just don’t think people need to know my marital status as it in no way defines me.

I too think titles which denote sex, gender or marital status should be abandoned.
Far too personal.
I can see a fair use for professional titles in a working envronment- Dr, Prof, Rev etc,

To be fair as former cabin crew (not for TUI!) but i think if people really knew what went on prior to boarding an aircraft most people would never fly again 😅

Oooh - do tell!!

Yes, please do.

YABU! The airline made an error- why are you blaming that on what women choose to call themselves?

YABU. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean we should all have to be Ms if we don’t want to