Women’s seats on carrier ‘for comfort’

Air India denies the decision was taken after sex attacks

NEW DELHI // Air India will introduce women-only seats on its domestic flights to give female passengers more choice and comfort, said a senior official from the national carrier, rejecting claims the move was linked to reports of inflight sex attacks.

From today, Air India will allocate six seats in the third row of its economy class cabin for solo women travellers – making it the only airline in India, and possibly the world – to take this step, the official said.

India already has policies that segregate women from men on public transport to avoid sexual harassment and molestation.

“We are doing this because we get many requests by female passengers at the checkin counter who want to sit next to female rather than male passengers,” said G Prasada Rao, Air India’s general manager for corporate communications.

“It is not connected to the reports of sexual assaults. It’s more to do with the fact that economy class doesn’t have much space to move around easily and comfortably for women, so this option will give them more choice.”

Mr Rao said the seats would be offered at no extra cost and be available for up to an hour before check-in closes.

The airline may also extend this policy to international flights after gauging effectiveness on domestic routes. Many news reports have linked the decision to introduce the women-only seats to incidents of sexual assaults on the state-owned carrier over the past month. In December last year, a 40-year-old female passenger complained that a man sitting next to her groped her as she slept during a flight from Mumbai to New York.

Less than two weeks later, a female flight attendant complained of being molested and subjected to lewd language by a male passenger during a flight from Delhi to Muscat.

Activists blame the assaults on deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes that objectify women.

In some cases, victims have taken to social media to report the assaults.