According to a report by CNBC, India’s largest budget carrier IndiGo is the first airline to test a feature that allows female passengers to book seats next to other women and thus avoid sitting shoulder to shoulder with a man. This measure is intended to make flying more comfortable for female passengers.
The airline’s booking process is fairly standard, aside from the seat map, which marks seats occupied by women in pink. This information is not visible to male passengers, CNBC reported. IndiGo did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment on the new feature.
IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers told CNBC that customers so far seem to like the new option, which the airline is testing on all flights in May.
All IndiGo passengers provide their gender and other personal information to the airline when purchasing tickets and reserving seats, and customers seem to appreciate that, IndiGo’s CEO told CNBC.
“We have a significant proportion of female travelers. And basically, technology now enables some things that were not possible in the past… We introduced it as a test for female travelers to check in and see where they can sit next to another female traveler, and actually that’s been very, very well received by our customers, but also internationally,” CEO Pieter Elbers said in an interview with CNBC.
In fact, passengers of all genders have complained that their male seatmates engage in “manspreading,” or taking up the space of others by keeping their legs wide apart. Worse still, some passengers on various airlines have complained that men have touched them inappropriately during the flight.
However, not everyone is thrilled with the move. Some critics on social media questioned how the policy would apply to people who identify as nonbinary, saying the feature could be seen as sexist and discriminatory.
“This fails to take into account that women can also commit sexual assault,” wrote one commenter in a Reddit thread.
