The Daily Populous Wednesday August 7th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by Sariel007

India's biggest budget airline IndiGo has been trialing a booking feature that will allow women to avoid booking a seat next to men on flights.

The feature, the first of its kind for an airline, works by showing female travelers a pink seat at the seat selection page if it will be occupied by a female passenger, a company representative told CNBC Travel.

Male travelers, however, will not see this information, the company said.

Travelers on IndiGo must identify their genders when they purchase tickets, which allows the airline to control access to these details, according to Indigo.

The carrier began rolling out the service in May on a pilot basis, and is available on all flights, the company said. However, IndiGo's website and mobile app did not show the feature when CNBC did a check.

The new feature has received "positive individual reactions" on social media, IndiGo's CEO told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" last week.

"Technology is now enabling some things which were not able in the past. We brought [the initiative] up as a test ... It has responded very well with our customers, but also internationally," CEO Pieter Elbers said.

norhor on August 7th, 2024 at 16:46 UTC »

I don't want to sit close to babies.

rushmc1 on August 7th, 2024 at 12:15 UTC »

Great. There are TONS of people I don't want to sit next to.

OblivionsBorder on August 7th, 2024 at 12:00 UTC »

"That sounds crazy".

First line tells me it is India.

"Never mind. That makes sense".