India’s largest budget carrier, IndiGo, is the first airline to trial a feature that lets female passengers book seats next to other women to avoid sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a man in a move designed to make flying more comfortable for female passengers, according to a CNBC report.
The airline’s booking process is fairly standard except for the seat map which highlights seats occupied by women with the color pink. This information is not visible to male passengers, according to the airline, CNBC reported. IndiGo did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment on the new feature.
Not denying violence against women is an issue elsewhere too, but you would be hard pressed to find such a staggering density of sexual violence, in rather public areas, committed by groups of men for little to no provocation than a woman being in the wrong place.
Now I am not saying all Indian men are rapists of course, but there certainly is evidence of a system wide, cultural aspect creating and enabling this behavior in a way rarely seen elsewhere.
So help you if you’re a lady who wants to be out after 6PM in UP or South Delhi… RIP Jyoti