This is about the staff in the airline industry. What about passengers?

The issue of sexual safety in the skies is an important one globally, not just in India. While there are no definitive statistics, there are reports of groping, touching and fondling that women have reported to airline staff all across the globe. These are typically silent assaults, which are unwelcome, repugnant and often not reported.

Most victims are women; However, there have been incidents when young men or adolescent boys have been targeted. The perpetrators are always adult males. This has nothing to do with the class of travel: Women could be targeted regardless of whether they were traveling economy or first class.

We should also note, for perspective, that over three million passengers fly every day, and obnoxious passengers stand out because they are exceptions rather than the rule.

How do international airlines deal with misbehaving passengers? The flight staff are trained to restrain the perpetrators, stop serving alcohol to unruly passengers, and if needed, offer to relocate the woman, provided another seat is available. Incidentally, most instances on international flights involve an inebriated passenger. This was also what happened in the urination case on an Air India flight (business class) in 2023.

In the US, passengers take recourse to the legal system for redressal. In India, with an overburdened judicial system this may not be an option.

With this context, the recent “pink seats” announcement by Indigo airlines is puzzling. A new feature allows women to see the sex of other passengers when choosing their seats. They can choose to sit next to women to avoid sitting next to men. Undoubtedly, for some women, having this choice will give a sense of temporary respite.

But what about women who choose seats for comfort — front or exit row, aisle or window seats, and end up seated next to a man? Men might assume that women who do not choose the pink seats are more “broadminded”.

If the issue is sexual safety, isolating women is not the solution. Airline staff can and should isolate the perpetrator, rather than nudging women to isolate themselves.

What about women’s compartments in commuter trains and women’s seats in buses? The logic there is different. In the short-to-medium term, we need these measures. Trains and buses are overpacked daily commute options where ensuring any kind of order is much harder than inside an airplane, unless people self-regulate, as indeed they do in several parts of the world.

Some might claim that women need freedom not just from sexual assault but also boorish and inconsiderate behavior. Absolutely. Women deal with “manspreading” and “man-sitting” all the time, not to mention men pushing themselves ahead and breaking queues. Many male passengers have no idea that the armrest between two seats is to be shared between both passengers, it is not their birthright to lean over and occupy the entire space.

But this will never change if women slink out of the way. At the Delhi airport recently, each security belt had three-four airport staff, catching passengers trying to break the queue (which included women too) by shoving their bags ahead of passengers who were in line. Costly but effective, and certainly worth implementing until passengers learn the protocols of civilized behavior.

Indigo claims that it has the highest number (678) of women pilots among all airlines, thus contributing to India’s top rank in this dimension. If this is indeed true, Indigo needs to demonstrate its leadership also in ensuring top-class safety protocols with a well-trained crew who are sensitized to detect and act upon instances quickly and efficiently. The last thing they should be doing is asking women to ghettoize themselves. Because, you know, “men will be men”.

The writer is professor of economics and founder director, CEDA, Ashoka University. Views are personal