HOLS giant TUI is telling pilots and cabin crew not to refer to passengers as “ladies and gentlemen” to be more gender-neutral.
Air travellers can now expect to instead hear: “Good morning, passengers, this is your captain speaking.”
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BA faced “woke” jibes when it made the move — and the Freedom Association’s Andrew Allison blasted: “TUI have their head in the clouds.
“‘Ladies and gentlemen’ has always been the traditional polite greeting.
“There is no need to change this in order to placate a tiny minority who feel offended.”
Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, added: “Most surveys put the percentage of trans people in the population at around 0.5 per cent and I cannot imagine more than ten per cent of them object to the phrase ‘ladies and gentleman’.”
But TUI said it was committed to ensuring staff and customers “always feel welcome”.
It added: “We therefore encourage all our pilots and crew to ensure all public announcements onboard our aircraft are inclusive.”
