Saudia Arabia’s Airline May Introduce Gender-Segregated Flights

saudia_arabia39s_airline_may_introduce_gender_segregated_flights_m9Saudia, Saudi Arabia’s national airline, is reportedly organizing to begin segregating their flights by gender. The move, initial reported by Arabic-language news agency Ajel, is in response to male passengers complaining about their wives and daughters becoming seated next to strange guys.

“There are solutions to this problem…we will soon enforce guidelines that will satisfy all passengers,” Saudia assistant manager for promoting Abdul Rahman Al Fahd stated, quoted by the Saudi Arabic language daily ‘Ajel’.

He did not elaborate, but the paper said it would include things like guidelines to flight booking staff at the Gulf kingdom’s airports to guarantee males and females are separated aboard Saudia’s flights unless they are closely associated.

Saudia already bans pork, alcohol and “pornographic components” aboard their flights, both as a nod to their largely devout Muslim consumer base and because these points are illegal in Saudia Arabia and would be seized at customs. They’ve also been introducing a lot more gender-segregation into their business enterprise operations, opening a quantity of “women’s offices” staffed only by girls and serving only female clients.

El Al, Israel’s national airline, has faced similar grumpiness from haredi (ultra-Orthodox) flyers who refuse to sit next to girls they aren’t related to earlier this year, several flights had been delayed soon after males refused to sit in their assigned seats due to the fact they had been next to ladies.

El Al so far hasn’t introduced gender-segregation on their flights it’s a additional contentious problem in Israel than Saudia Arabia simply because of the ongoing tension between Israel’s Orthodox minority faction and the country’s much much less observant majority. But Saudi Arabia is also a major company hub what occurs when a trans or gender non-conforming particular person, for instance, wants to fly Saudia? The airline hasn’t however updated their Situations of Carriage to confirm or clarify the new rule.