In the faraway year of 2019, ride-share platform Uber (UBER) made industry waves by launching a feature that allowed women to be matched with a fellow female driver.
Originally launched in Saudi Arabia due to the country's laws and culture around women being out in public, Uber later expanded Women Rider Preference to Western countries for those who, particularly on late-night rides, simply feel safer with a female driver. Primary competitor Lyft (LYFT) followed with its own Women+ Connect feature in September 2023.
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But while such a feature is seen as basic in the ride-hailing space, it is extremely unusual in the aviation realm — over in India, the country's largest airline by passengers carried announced that it is preparing to launch a feature that would let women see the gender of the person who will be flying next to them on a seat map.
Want to sit next to a fellow woman? Here is how IndiGo's new booking feature works
Earlier in the year, IndiGo asked its passengers to complete a series of satisfaction surveys asking what would make their travel experience better. Multiple female passengers reported experiencing harassment and expressed a wish for a feature that would allow them to report it.
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The new feature has already been rolled out for select flights — when female passengers with a booked ticket go on the site, they will be able to see not just which seat is taken and which is available for taking as is standard for airlines but also the gender of the person sitting there.
"IndiGo is proud to announce the introduction of a new feature that aims to make the travel experience more comfortable for our female passengers," an IndiGo representative said in a statement for news outlets. "We are committed to providing an unparalleled travel experience for all our passengers, and this new feature is just one of the many steps we are taking towards achieving that goal."
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'Aims to make the travel experience more comfortable for our female passengers'
Depending on whether one's ticket class allows for early seat selection, one can either confirm a seat early or wait until the 24-hour check-in period opens. IndiGo has been using the #GirlPowerEthos hashtag when marketing the new feature.
"The feature offers visibility of seats booked by female passengers, only during web check-in," IndiGo said further. As the goal is to protect against harassment that disproportionately affects women, the feature is reserved only for women, non-binary passengers and women who are traveling along with young children of any gender. To access the feature, one needs to have the female gender entered with one's passport details when booking the flight.
Female-only train and subway cars became common in India with the rise of the middle class and women in the workforce over the last three decades — as women increasingly started riding public transportation alone, incidents of sexual harassment aboard also spiked. The Mumbai Metro runs a number of women-only coaches during peak travel hours while certain cities in India also have a dedicated "Ladies Special" train line.
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