Air Vistara Apologises For Sexist Error on Their Website That Didn’t Let Woman Select ‘Professor’ as Her Title

The woman was filling a form on the Air Vistara website that required her to mention her professional and personal details. However, the option 'Professor' was unavailable against her gender.

Air Vistara was quick to look into the matter and rectify the error after a female passenger complained of gender bias on their website. Shyama Rath took to Twitter the other day and posted the screenshot of the company’s website,  revealing that an online form on the site didn’t let her select title ‘Professor’ against her gender.

Rath tagged Air Vistara and quickly pointed out that their website showed the title ‘professor’ was unavailable for the female gender. She captioned her post on Twitter as, “Common, #Air_Vistara.” (sic)

Common, #Air_Vistara pic.twitter.com/jqIJL1WiIa

— shyama (@rath_shyama) July 25, 2019

As soon as Rath’s tweet went viral, Air Vistara launched an apology on Twitter and mentioned that their team will be rectifying the error soon. The tweet read, “Dear Ms. Rath. Thank you for pointing this out. This certainly is not done correctly, we will have it fixed. Apologies for this, we are embarrassed to see this, Vishal.” (sic)

Dear Ms. Rath. Thank you for pointing this out. This certainly is not done correctly, we will have it fixed. Apologies for this, we are embarrassed to see this, Vishal.

— Vistara (@airvistara) July 25, 2019

Another tweet came from the Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer of Vistara, Sanjiv Kapoor. He aplogised to Rath and assured that their website will be taking corrective measures. “Shyama, I am mortified to see this. Apologies, and thanks for pointing 5his out. We will have it fixed!” he wrote.

Later, another user pointed out that it wasn’t a gender-based error but some bug that didn’t let any user select the title ‘professor’ for any gender.

Doesn’t work for male as well 😂 pic.twitter.com/ZiFQP0Gq3Q

— Neel (@anonymousCircum) July 25, 2019

However, as the discussion went on, several users also highlighted the importance of having the option of the third gender on the website. A user wrote, “Please also be mortified for restricting gender to binaries, thereby excluding those who do not identify with either of the two genders. @FeminismInIndia” (sic)

Please also be mortified for restricting gender to binaries, thereby excluding those who do not identify with either of the two genders. @FeminismInIndia

— Shijoy Varughese (@shijoyvarughese) July 25, 2019

In the end, Kapoor finally revealed that the error has been fixed and whatever happened was embarrassing. He wrote, “This has been fixed. Apologies again for the embarrassing glitch, we are taking measures to ensure no such recurrence. Thank you again for bringing it to our attention.” (sic)