Tui still giving out ‘sexist’ stickers on flights

Airline blamed a ‘mix-up’ last year

One of the stickers at the centre of the sexism storm (TUI Airways)

A year after Tui faced accusations of sexism for handing out gendered stickers to children on its flights, the travel firm has been accused of issuing them again.

Cabin crew were found to be giving out stickers reading “Future Tui captain” to boys and “Future Tui cabin crew” to girls during its flights in August 2018.

At the time, the company said the incident was a “simple mix-up since our future pilot and cabin crew stickers are designed for use for any child regardless of gender”.

But this week, Mark Munro was travelling on a Tui flight from Newcastle to Antalaya, Turkey, when he noticed airline staff giving out the same stickers to boys and girls.

The chief executive of Scottish Athletics, who was travelling as part of a group of 20 adults and children, told the Metro newspaper that all boys in the group were handed pilot stickers while the girls were given cabin crew stickers.

When two children tried to swap their stickers, the crew reportedly told them that they were wearing the “wrong” ones.

“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,” said a Tui UK spokesperson. “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.”