Others commented about misogyny etc. in India miss the fact that India is (a) not a monolith & (b) flights are too expensive for 80% of India’s population (yes, wealth disparity in India is that bad). So the men on flights are less likely to grope women than let’s say a man on a train.

I asked my Indian colleagues about this, and they said they’d use this preference for space (not purely safety). One of them also said men smell worse than women so she’d prefer a woman next to her.

On Indian flights you can pay to choose your seat or let the operator choose for you for free. I suspect the latter is where the preference choice comes in. So there won’t be a question of seeing where women are sitting.

Wow all those rumors Apple was making a car were true