Lone male travellers should be allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children on passenger planes, a discrimination tribunal has ruled.
The decision comes after a man was asked to swap seats with a woman by the cabin crew of a flight travelling from Oslo to Paris in October 2022.
They told him he could not be seated next to two children travelling alone, with the policy being enforced by Air France to prevent any possibility of predatory behaviour.
But the man, Dominique Sellier, filed a complaint with Norway’s anti-discrimination tribunal, which ruled that the airline’s policy was discriminatory.
Mr Sellier told France’s AFP news agency on Tuesday: “It was not a very nice situation. The passengers around me were looking at me, they were waiting for me to change seats so we could take off.
“Maybe some of it was me projecting, but I interpreted some of the looks like ‘This guy is shady’.”
Oh the poor man. He was made to feel uncomfortable. That can't be right.
His feelings, inevitably, trump any concerns about safety or protecting children.
According to the tribunal’s ruling late last year, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, Air France’s policy stipulates that if a flight is fully booked, a woman should “preferably” be seated next to unaccompanied minors.
In proceedings, a lawyer for Air France argued that the crew was merely following company policy, which was based on the argument that men account for 97.93 per cent of all suspected sex crimes.
Really, what kind of self-absorbed entitled idiot takes a case like this to court? Well yes, a man, obviously.
And he won.
[Excellent comment from ArtyMorty at B&W on this]
Mick Hartley 
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