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?

We have a choice what to be called
Men don't
I wonder how many women would be up in arms if men had a choice and women didn't

As an aside why do people call themselves Dr just because they have an academic qualification.

Because they can. Just as other women can insist on the pointless distinction between Miss/Mrs/Ms if they want to.

@ravenmum

Investigators described the glitch as “a simple flaw” in an IT system. It was programmed in an unnamed foreign country where the title “Miss” is used for a child and “Ms” for an adult female. It was a translation error. Whether or not "Miss" is used in English is not going to make any difference in this unnamed foreign country.

Lots of companies offshore their programming. It is not a translation error due to the unnamed foregin country.

Tui are responsible and accountable for clearly specifying their requirements and then testing the product delivered, especially when it is critical to safety. Tui is trying to shift blame.

I prefer Miss. I like the sound of it better. Ms is horrible to my ears.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

As an aside why do people call themselves Dr just because they have an academic qualification.

Because they can. Just as other women can insist on the pointless distinction between Miss/Mrs/Ms if they want to.

But other people/organisations don't need to call them "Dr", especially if not in a relevant capacity.

I agree that salutations/titles are an outdated relic for "normal" day to day activities.

Fair enough to use "Dr" or letters behind your name when dealing in a professional capacity, or workplace, but no place at all for any of that in "normal" life, such as booking an aircraft seat!

As much as I think every woman should simply be Ms, this error had everything to do with stupidity and nothing to do with titles. It's the least persuasive argument for using Ms that I've ever heard.

About time we stopped using titles altogether, with the possible exception of earned titles such as Dr. Nobody needs to know whether I'm Mrs, Mr, Mx, Lady, Miss, or Lord. It's a stupid irrelevance that enables discrimination.

It’s an issue with outsourcing software development overseas where different cultural assumptions apply.

This is a widely known problem but companies persist in thinking it’s a good idea.

I want nothing to do with the history behind Miss/Mrs! I am an unmarried nearly 50 something with a partner and kids, do people in that situation really still call themsleves Miss? (Outside of schools) Wouldn't that seem really weird?

I agree Ms sounds a bit naff but I like the symmetry/equalness or Mr for all adult men, Ms for all adult women -unless they want to identify themselves as Miss or Mrs - I just think and hope these old fashioned terms will slowly fade away. What do young girls call themselves these days?

Two things are worrying here. Firstly that they think 69kgs is an appropriate weight for adults - I’m surprised that they don’t have this problem more often if that’s what they allocate. And secondly, given how much of modern flight is automated and computerised, that TUIs system testing is clearly so dire that no one noticed this error.

When my firm did a GDPR data review (i.e. to check we actually "need" the data we hold), we quickly decided to scrap the salutation field in all our databases. We couldn't actually think of any "need" for holding that piece of personal data, so couldn't justify keeping it as we'd risk being in breach of the GDPR for keeping data we don't need nor use.

I've also noticed some banks and insurance firms are now addressing correspondence to "Fred Bloggs" instead of "Mr F Bloggs" so it looks like other organisations have made the same decision.

We were also very, very close to scrapping the "sex/gender" field in our databases too. We only kept it in one database (deleted in others) because of the difference in state retirement age, we couldn't think of any other legitimate need for knowing that information. As soon as state retirement age is equalised, then that field will also be deleted from all databases.

That’s the fault of the airline not the prefix.

I hate the mess and confusion that adopting Ms. in english speaking countries has caused. A previous poster mentioned in Germany that women just become Frau when they are adults and I believe in France it is similar, all adult women these days are Madame - Mademoiselle is reserved for children. We just need to adopt a system where all adult women are Mrs - no choices, no assumptions, no confusion. Miss for children, Mrs for adults, marital status not an issue. All the time theres is a choice we end up with the different choices coming with all sorts of baggage.

@Angelica789

It’s an issue with outsourcing software development overseas where different cultural assumptions apply.

This is a widely known problem but companies persist in thinking it’s a good idea.

Like many years ago when they subcontracted the digitalisation of census data and found that the shiny new database held huge numbers of records of people with a surname of "ditto" living at an address "ditto"!

@cordeliaflynne

I hate the mess and confusion that adopting Ms. in english speaking countries has caused. A previous poster mentioned in Germany that women just become Frau when they are adults and I believe in France it is similar, all adult women these days are Madame - Mademoiselle is reserved for children. We just need to adopt a system where all adult women are Mrs - no choices, no assumptions, no confusion. Miss for children, Mrs for adults, marital status not an issue. All the time theres is a choice we end up with the different choices coming with all sorts of baggage.

Why do we need any system at all?

@fridgepants

What I found most weird about that story is the weight presumption for women is 69kg? Not all women are petite or slim, surely most women these days are over 9st? I'm a cis woman and I'm taller than quite a few men.

69kg isn't 9 stone!

It's actually pretty bloody close to the average woman's weight. And the 'women' category includes girls aged over 12, who are likely to be small.

I don’t want to be called Ms, it’s an annoying made-up word

Oh man, I've got some terrible news for you about literally all words.

that sounds stupid and confuses people about how to pronounce it and it doesn’t have history behind it like Miss/Mrs.

It derives from the same root word as Miss and Mrs so shares a history - and Mrs and Miss landed on their current usage later than many people think (they used to be used quite differently), and has a history going back to the 17th and 18th centuries. We're reviving and reclaiming it.

I'm not sure about the pronunciation issue - do you have trouble saying 'fizz' or the second syllable of 'Mrs', depending on whether you favour the 'i' or 'schwa' pronunciation?

It's interesting that male titles have pretty much totally done away with titles that signify social status and power dynamics, but we cling to the female titles that do likewise. We don't use Mrs/Miss/Ms in the same way as we use Mr when talking about the chair of a meeting, how Kamala Harris is referred to - none of those carry the same gravitas or impact as 'Mr' when being able to say 'Mr Chairman' or 'Mr Vice-President'. Possibly because 'Mrs' is so tied up in 'wife of' meaning - so 'Mrs Vice-President' could 'read' the wrong way.

@RainingBatsAndFrogs

I can’t stomach the way women’s titles are differentiated by marital status and have been Ms since I was 13 as a result.

But I think that airlines should have better (less sexist) and more ‘internationally aligned’ systems rather than their systems dictating to women what they call themselves.

I am more boggled that the adult weight allowance is 69Kg. Not in the average check in queue I have stood in!

I agree regarding the adult weight assumption. I myself am 10kgs over that and am smaller than many of my friends and acquaintances.

Given that this article is about women, the 'average for an adult' figure of 69kg pretty bloody obviously relates to adult WOMEN. And it's pretty close, particularly if teenagers are included for airline purposes.

I don't understand why everyone is so shocked that 69kg (just under 11st) might be roughly the average female weight? I'm 5'10'', weigh less than that, and could probably do with losing a couple of pounds.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11534042

The average woman in England weighed 11 stone (70.2kg) and was 5ft 3in tall (161.6cm).

I’m an adult female, my title is Miss. I quite like my title, why should I change it? The error was because the systems were designed in a country that had a different title system to ours, it could be avoided by simply adding a “child” or “adult” option.

Obviously a stupid error by Tui which shouldn't have happened.

I agree about Miss/Mrs distinction for women being a bit archaic but I don't know what the solution is as some people like them and a lot of people don't like "Ms" as the alternative.

Maybe we need a new title for men which declares their marital status to even things up, rather than taking titles away from women.

I quoted this earlier:
"The ONS said the average man in England was 5ft 9in (175.3cm) tall and weighed 13.16 stone (83.6kg). The average woman in England weighed 11 stone (70.2kg) and was 5ft 3in tall (161.6cm).(13 Oct 2010)"

The average will have gone up since then as will the average heights.

It looks like it would be out by a fair few kgs per adult, without factoring in the amount it was out by assuming each Miss was a child.

It's the women's weight that is relevant here.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight#By_country
This lists 70kg as the average woman's body weight in the UK. Obviously many women are a lot heavier or lighter, but if you're not actually weighing, then the average is your only choice.
Obviously airlines might use an international figure, which could be slightly lower - Spanish women are listed here as weighing 66.6 kg on average, for instance.

My Dad and I are both 69 kg. I’m average for a woman he’s very slim for a man. I do think the 69 kg will be average for all 12 plus people as that is what airlines class as an adult. But some routes won’t have many kids on.

I prefer Mrs for all adult females with Miss for girls maybe up to about 21.