I like the idea of this option for women - air travel

[DOBARDAN]

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/indigo-introduces-female-friendly-seat-selection-during-web-check-in-announces-special-flight-sale-starting-at-rs-1199-11716960304002.html

IndiGo Airlines has launched a new feature during web check-in that allows female passengers to see which seats have been pre booked by other female passengers. This initiative aims to make air travel a more comfortable and safe experience for women, in that they can choose to sit away from men. If you are a male passenger wishing to pre book, the seats immediately around a female's pre booked seat will be blanked out.

Many complaints are made from women of being harassed or sexually assaulted whilst on their journey and the fact you can't always change your seat mid flight, (and you most definitely cannot exit the plane to get away), is a compounding factor. Of course, you can always alert aircraft staff, but this would be after the event.

I don't know if this initiative will work but I like the idea. My own personal experience of flying is feeling very awkward getting out of my seat and having to inch past a seated male passenger, in order to go to the loo. It almost feels like you're having to do a lap dance! The same awkwardness applies should the man want to get out of , or get back into, his seat. For this reason alone I would opt to sit away from men.

This is going to break down once the plane starts to get full, as there will be dozens of free seats that only women can reserve. Then the men will have to wait until boarding to be assigned a seat and probably end up sitting next to a woman anyway.

Nice idea, not workable.

I've never seen anyone lap dance past a man to get out. There physically isn't room to do that on Ryanair! The correct way is for other passengers to stand up and move into the aisle for 20 seconds while the person in the window seat gets out.

Yes, from what you say, I can see how it would not work, I doubt IndiGo will run the initiative for very long.

Haha, no room for a lap dance on Ryanair, and if only all passengers were gracious enough to stand up out of their seat to let you pass, especially those who resent you waking them up from a deep sleep!

There have been problems with men, I think mostly very orthodox Jewish men, kicking off when airlines have seated them next to women? This might help avoid that type of situation.

Easier surely to have women's areas, men's areas and mixed areas...of course there'll always be one idiot...but...

The areas could be kept to their category early in the booking process and then made more general later to avoid the problem outlined above, so you'd just need to book in early to make sure you got your preference?

It works well on trains and the metro in India. Women can travel independently and feel safe and this allows them to work. In the past it only seemed to be male business travellers using planes, but there are more women now and I don’t see why it can’t be done. Personally I would always choose to sit next to other women.

Well having spent the last flight I took with the man next to me's bare leg pressed up against mine because he couldn't possibly be expected just to take up his own seat space, I would whole-heartedly support this.

There was a very upsetting story this weekend of a young teenaged girl, with mutism, who was sexually assaulted over several hours on a flight by a male stranger on a flight. Her parents, for some unfathomable reason and despite her obvious vulnerabilities, were sat in a different row! They're now sueing the airline principally, i think, for continuing to serve booze to a man who was already drunk and failing to do enough once what was happening came to light.

Stories like this make me think men should be kept in the hold but having the option to avoid them is a start.

Men who identify as women will book the seats, sadly.

They obviously will.

I think it’s an interesting initiative, will have to see how it pans out in reality. I’ve travelled in women only sections of trains in India.

It is a shame that India concentrates on this kind of thing rather than actually making it socially unacceptable for men to grope and harass women.

“It is a shame that India concentrates on this kind of thing rather than actually making it socially unacceptable for men to grope and harass women.”

could be said about all countries..At least in India we have an option.

"If you are a male passenger wishing to pre book, the seats immediately around a female's pre booked seat will be blanked out."

But if I was a man, and saw a block of greyed out seats, I would think, hmmmm a woman is sat in the middle of those greyed out seats. If I select a seat right next to the greyed out block, I will have at least one free seat on one side since a man can't sit there and neither will another woman. WIN. I would then (if I was normal) proceed to spread out over my free seat during the flight or (if I was a perve) perve on the lady one seat along from me/diagonally across from me, to my pervy hearts content.

Yes, and scream about discrimination if they're refused.

I had this on a flight to canada.
he didn’t kick off per se he but I just swapped with a man one row in front.

I like this initiative but think it’s depressing and demonstrates societal regression that it’s needed.
i also think it’s only workable for a section of seating rather than all seating. I also think it will be abused by perverts who identify as women and want to cause a scene make some point/ make women uncomfortable

I also think it is due to religious reasons- I have been on 2 flights (both from New York to London) where my daughter has been asked to move because a man couldn’t sit next to her- she refused and we refused as her parents.
the last flight was late taking off due to the number of men that were struggling to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t next to a woman - and women were refusing to move (good for them!!)

I posted this a month ago when I was on a flight. Yes, I’d like to be able to avoid it.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5110258-men

I don't think they can do that due to needing to spread weight distribution.

Seating allocation is a nightmare for airlines as it is. We live in a mixed sex world. We need to learn to cope with that. And l say that as a feminist. This is different to areas which require a safe space for women; aircraft cabins are supervised. If a man is behaving inappropriately we should not accept that for minute and report it to the cabin crew.

No, whilst misogyny and harassment are common worldwide, there are very few countries where random groping is as big an issue as it is in India.

I think you are wrong. In most western countries men will do this ,particularly on public transport. There have been many threads here on MN describing the daily sexual harassment of women and girls.

I can see why people would support this, but I can see how it could cause a number of unintended consequences. It also does nothing to challenge men's behaviour, just puts the onus on women to avoid it.
So if the women's section is full, or you can't find a seat next to a woman, are you fair game to be assaulted or harassed? Some men will definitely see it like this.

I think if this is seen as ok, it should also be ok for men who don't want to sit next to women for religious and other reasons. The two are not necessarily as far apart as people seem to think, many orthodox religious people, be they Jewish, Muslim, etc, see this kind of rule as a way of protecting women and avoiding the appearance of impropriety.

I'm not saying it would be wrong to allow it - but I think very tricky to manage unless done as sections - male, female, mixed, rather like first class, economy, etc.

I've seen similar on other airlines operating from/within predominantly Muslim countries - when you go to reserve a seat online it displays "M" and "F" to indicate whether a man or a woman has pre-booked which seats. I'm going to be really unhelpful and not remember which ones though. I was travelling a lot in SE Asia so I think it was Malaysian Airlines and one of the Indonesian ones. This was presumably for religious observance rather than an initiative to keep women safe, but could be used the same way. The blanking out seats around women that IndiGo are doing doesn't sound workable in practice though.

What does this teach our boys? that they're all pervs?

I'm not saying I know a solution, but I despair as it's always a few shits that make it worse for everyone. If it wasn't for them, we can all sleep comfortably in the nude without being harassed.

We need better enforcement.