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TRAVEL
Does the Gender of Your Airplane Seatmate Matter to you?
One airline thinks it does
An airline in India is about to launch a new booking feature that would allow female airplane passengers to avoid sitting next to men.
Starting in August, IndiGo will let women check out the gender of the travelers who’ve already reserved a seat, so that they’ll have the option, when booking, to select a seat next to a female passenger.
Male passengers, in contrast, won’t be able to check out the gender of their fellow passengers in advance. Although that might enable certain airlines to avoid some problems.
This upgrade is the result of market research the airline conducted that asked female passengers what would make their travel experience more comfortable.
If an airline asked me what it could to do make my travel experience better? I’d probably go with something like:
Make the seats bigger!
Get rid of the hard-sell pitch for the airline’s credit card.
Let families sit together without making them pay extra.
Require that passengers keep their shoes and socks on.
Telling me the gender of the person who has booked the seat next to the one I’m thinking of reserving never would have occurred to me. But given the option? I’d definitely like that information. And? I’d definitely prefer to sit next to a fellow female.
Why?
I’m more comfortable with women. In my experience? They’re nicer. They’re more accommodating. They’re easier to get along with.
They’re (usually) smaller, and less likely to invade my personal space.
