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?

Women surgeons are called "Miss"?

Some surgeons use 'Miss' yes. Some use Ms or Mrs.

I like being "Miss" (although I am married) I tried being Ms for a while and it didn't really suit me at all. I only use a title at work anyway and it clarl indicates that the rest of my life is no one's business. My manager is single and she uses "Mrs".

@Nitgel

That's everything to do with the weight entry error and nothing to do with ms/miss. What a crazy system to start with.

It's everything to do with it, the system mistakenly used a setting for a different country where female children are miss and adult female are ms and so gave all females called miss an allocated weight of 35 kg as it assumed they were children.

I think they should just define it on age - not ask the world to choose ms/mrs!

So, what is boils down to is that there needs to be a data entry process that works in every country around the world. Plus, I think weighing passengers would help. It doesn't need to be embarrassing.

@BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand

Ms is NOT indicative of divorce!

Yes! I can't believe people still believe this crap about Ms.

I'm a Ms, very happily married, never divorced.

My mum used to work (about 5 years ago, so not when Ms was a new or unfamiliar concept or anything!) who thought that Ms meant you were divorced or a lesbian in a long-term relationship, and it took a while to convince her otherwise!

@LesserBother

69 kilos is a normal healthy weight for my height (5'10"), and I'm tall for a woman.

I think the point is not whether 69kg is a healthy weight for an average women but rather that many (most?) people aren't a healthy weight. No point using the healthy average if the majority of your passengers are overweight

I agree, but my point was that 69kg is overweight for the majority of women (I think the average women is 5'4"?). As the population tends towards overweight, 69kg probably isn't massively different to the real average for women.

Whether or not a typical plane load of women is representative of the general population is another question. People travelling frequently are likely to be better off (which generally correlates with being slimmer), but on a budget airline that link may not apply.

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

Ms, Miss, and Mrs are all short for Mistress.

Does anyone else chose an unusual title if given a choice on a drop down list?

I do then when required for like online events or other unofficial things where it's a bit silly to require it so I'm going to be a bit silly too.

Titles being something everyone had is fairly recent, it used to be attached to profession, then class (and then, like all things to refer to women, it also got connected to prostituted women which is part of why we pronounce the abbreviation rather than saying Mistress as we say Mister or Master).

I think it's about time we return to them being optional rather than something we're required to have. I'm sure there are easier ways to manage the translating this type of information between countries for planes and such than using titles that not all countries use.

@ittakes2

I think they should just define it on age - not ask the world to choose ms/mrs!

This is the best solution. If they ask sex and age, then an average weight can be used based on this.

The only time you should need to get into weighing individuals is on a much smaller plane or helicopter. I've made helicopter trips where I and my baggage had to be weighed, and passengers were seated by weight to ensure that the helicopter was in balance. For a large plane, an average should be sufficient provided they don't cock up.

Nope - this is an argument NOT to offshore IT for critical systems to the cheapest workforce on the planet.

The problem was in the software not with the title. I am a Miss not a Mrs. If I use Ms it gets changed to Mrs, so I gave up trying to use it.

What standard child weight 35 kg? It's only about 5.5 st.
A child in this case is age 2-16.

I am Mrs. I have never chosen to be called Ms and will happily say “it’s Mrs actually” if an adult calls me Miss or Ms (the children at school often call me Miss but that’s because all female staff are called Miss - but I’m Mrs When used with my surname).

Assuming that everyone who buys a child ticket is small is ridiculous. One of my relatives is 13 but 6 foot tall and a size 14. Another is an adult,
but 5'1 and a size 6.
Changing the listing of peoples titles won't solve this problem.

^What standard child weight 35 kg? It's only about 5.5 st.
A child in this case is age 2-16^

In airline world a child is 2-11. An adult is 12+, so some of those 'women' are actually teenage girls who weigh a lot less than 69 kg, so offset those of us who weigh more.

I am surprised that the average weight hasn't increased, but airlines must be sufficiently confident, and probably have a decent margin of safety, to continue using these figures.

@Nitgel

That's everything to do with the weight entry error and nothing to do with ms/miss. What a crazy system to start with.

Date of birth has to be given for all passengers, so they should use the date of birth to determine average weight etc. I agree, a stupid and flawed system to use salutation.

I think Tuo need to rethink their system, not the whole of the English speaking world.

@bookworm1632

Nope - this is an argument NOT to offshore IT for critical systems to the cheapest workforce on the planet.

bookworm1632 has summed it up.

Nope - this is an argument NOT to offshore IT for critical systems to the cheapest workforce on the planet.

I’m with you for getting rid of Miss!! At work our signature generator automatically includes your title. I have removed mine... why is my marital status relevant in the workplace?!

I really like being a Miss... I'm 52 and still wear my Miss badge with pride!

“@Sparklingbrook Presuming everyone with 'Miss' is a child makes no sense at all. And even children weigh differently. A baby v a 12 year old etc.”

Yes this!

They’re also assuming then that as soon as you get to 18 you get married off and become a Mrs 🤣 otherwise how on earth did this even happen

@The90swereadecadeago, a child is someone between 2 and 16. The standard weight might have been guessed as being half of a standard adult weight.

69 kg for an adult isn't even 11 stones, so god knows who these 'standard' adults are.

And even children weigh differently. A baby v a 12 year old etc

But it's an average. No'one's saying a 2 YO weighs the same as an 11 YO, just when you have a typical plane of hundreds of people, a few dozen of those are DC, the average weight of those DC is 35 kg.

Of course if they were all sturdy 11 YO boys, it's likely to be an underestimate, likewise, if the flight was in term time and nearly all DC were actually preschoolers, it's probably an overestimate, but short of weighing every single passenger, industry standard averages are used, that they must know are reasonable as too light would be potentially dangerous and too heavy would cause too much fuel to be used, and extra cost due to the weight of transporting the unnecessary fuel.

I think one worrying thing is that they put all women down as an average of 65kg. I’d wager average weight of women these days is more than 65kg.

Well that was a QA fuck up if ever I saw one. That issue should have been caught way back before the software ever went live.

God knows what shitty consults were working on that project.