Tui Airways has flown into controversy again after handing out ‘future Tui pilot’ stickers to boys and ‘future Tui cabin crew’ versions to girls.
The airline hit the national and international headlines in August when passengers on flights accused it of sexism after handing out pilot stickers only to boys while girls received ones about being cabin crew.
The row has erupted again as Mark Munro, chief executive of Scottish Athletics, tweeted: “What a disgrace @tuiuk Your staff have just given stickers to every child on the flight to Antalya. Every boy got given a ‘future Tui pilot’ sticker and every girl a ‘future Tui cabin crew’ sticker. This is an absolute shocker and you should be ashamed #equalopportunities”.
More: Tui drawn into gender dispute over stickers given to children
Posted yesterday (October 11), the tweet has been retweeted 270 times, and has more than 670 likes.
There are 74 comments, mostly criticising the airline.
A Tui UK spokesperson said: “We work hard to be a diverse and inclusive business and would like to apologise to any customer upset at the sticker their child received on their recent flight to Turkey.
What a disgrace @tuiuk . Your staff have just given stickers to every child on the flight to Antalya. Every boy got given a ‘future Tui pilot’ sticker and every girl a ‘future Tui cabin crew’ sticker. This is an absolute shocker and you should be ashamed #equalopportunities
— SALMarkMunro (@SALMarkMunro) October 10, 2019
“Both future pilot and future cabin crew stickers are in our TUI blue colours and are not designed for boys or girls but for all children.
“We use the stickers as a way for our crew onboard to create special moments for our customers and the feedback continues to be positive.
“We realise on this occasion some customers are disappointed by this and we will be working with our crew to ensure children have a choice of which sticker they receive.”
In August, passengers tweeted about the same issue on flights to Cyprus and Corfu.
Tui UK said at the time that those instances were “a simple mix-up”.
More: Tui drawn into gender dispute over stickers given to children