Japan Airlines embraces gender-neutral greetings

Japan Airlines is ditching the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" and instead embracing gender-neutral terms during in-flight and airport announcements from next month, the company said Monday. From October 1, JAL "will abolish expressions that based on [two types of] sex and use gender-friendly expression" like "good morning" and "good evening," a spokesperson for the airline said. In Japanese, the expression generally used for such announcements is already gender-neutral, but the decision applies to other languages used by the airline. The decision appears to be a first for major Japanese carriers, with a spokeswoman for rival ANA Holdings telling AFP they would "study the issue based on comments from our customers." <br/>