Non-binary people can now fly with American Airlines using X or U as their gender marker
File photo. A plane is seen next to a rainbow (MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty)
American Airlines is the latest US airline to update its booking process to allow non-binary customers to fly with an X or U gender marker.
People who have a non-binary gender marker on their ID documents can now mark their gender as “U’ or “X” when flying with American Airlines.
The option will be rolled out on American Airlines’ website soon, and for now non-binary passengers can call up to change the designated gender marker on their booking.
“We recently completed a system update to offer non-binary gender selections,” American Airlines spokesperson Ross Feinstein told USA TODAY.
“Taking care of our customers and team members is what we do, and we are glad to be able to better accommodate the gender preferences of our travelers and team members.”
The new gender designation is free to use.
United was the first major US airline to offer non-binary customers new gender marker options when booking, back in March this year,
The airline worked with LGBT+ organisations including the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project on how to implement the update, which included training American Airlines employees on using pronouns like they/them and ze/zir.
“By providing non-binary gender selection for ticketing and the gender-inclusive honorific ‘Mx’ in user profiles, United Airlines is taking an important step forward for non-binary inclusion,” Beck Bailey, acting director of the workplace equality program at the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement at the time.
The moves comes after two big trade groups, Airlines for America (A4A) in the US and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) approved a new international best-practices standard at the beginning of 2019, suggesting that airlines should accommodate passengers whose ID documents show their gender as non-binary.
The suggested standard options is to add “unspecified” or “undisclosed” gender categories, in addition to the preexisting “male” or “female” options.
In Europe, Air Italy became the first European airline to add the gender marker option of “X” in June this year.
As with the US airlines, only passengers whose passport or other identity documents have a gender marker that isn’t “M” or “F” can use the new “X” designation.
