Enough with the ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’, says Japan Airlines

In an innovative decision, Japan Airlines (JAL) will ditch the usual “ladies and gentlemen” from
its announcements, starting next month.

Instead, from October 1, greetings like “attention all passengers” and “welcome everyone” will be used in the company’s flights and airports. The decision has been made to make greetings more gender-neutral and inclusive.

“We have been promoting diversity in the community since 2014, and this is one of our
actions taken to treat everyone [equally] regardless of gender,” Yutaro Iwasaki, publicist for
JAL said.

The new mandate will be applicable for the announcements made in other languages as the
ones made in Japanese are already gender-neutral.

JAL will become the first Japanese carrier to embrace gender-neutral terms while welcoming its flyers.

However, this isn’t the first time the Tokyo-based airline has out come in support of the community. JAL had flown a trial 'LGBT Ally Charter' flight for same-sex partners and their families last year. Same-sex marriage is not legally recognised in Japan. However, gradual expansion in the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens has been supported in recent years. While Japan is relatively tolerant of homosexuality, no legal protection is available for gay people in the country.

Australian airlines Qantas was among the first to have launched the “Spirit of Inclusion” initiative in March 2018. It had suggested its employees refrain from using gender-specific words like ‘honey’, ‘love’ and ‘guys’, ‘husband and wife’ and ‘mum and dad’.

Here's a suggestion. How about we follow suit, and get rid of the highly annoying "deviyon and sajjano" in India?