Jetstar sorry for gender blunder

Jetstar has apologised to a female doctor who lashed out at the lowcost airline when her gender appeared as male on a ticket booking.

Melbourne-based intensive care doctor Sandra Lussier shared a screen grab on social media of her passenger information, which labelled her as male.

‘‘Fly with Jetstar as a female doctor, website assumes you’re male without any way of changing it. Even the internet is sexist,’’ she said on Twitter.

Jetstar said the incorrect gender appeared to be a system error, which had now been fixed.

The airline’s chief information officer, Claudine Ogilvie, said the doctor title was provided as an option to let staff know of medical practitioners on board flights, in the case of an in-flight emergency.

‘‘The doctor title isn’t gender specific and should not default to a predetermined gender,’’ she said.

‘‘We’ve contacted our software supplier to look into why this occurred in this instance and our IT team will be working with them to fix the issue as soon as possible.

‘‘We’ve contacted Dr Lussier to apologise for the system error,’’ she said.

Jetstar was asked if the issue was affecting its New Zealand site or any others, but did not answer this query.

It was expat Kiwi Dr Ross ScottWeekly, now based in Perth, who kicked off the saga on social media when the same thing happened to his wife.

Scott-Weekly saidthat if a person chose ‘‘doctor’’ in the passenger details part of the itinerary then ‘‘your gender is recorded as male and there is no way to change this’’.

In March, Kiwi Adele fans slammed Jetstar for cancelling a New Plymouth to Auckland flight at short notice because of pilot sickness.

The airline said it offered a bus service to fans. But some passengers claimed they weren’t told about it, leaving them angry about missing the show.