Has anybody else run into this?

Friends of mine were checking in for their trans-Atlantic flight on British Airways, when the counter agent noted that "You'll be seated next to a young person today." Carol at first thought, "Obviously - my 20-year-old daughter is right here checking in with me." But when the agent repeated the comment, Carol asked for clarification. It turns out that British Airways has a policy that when unaccompanied minors are traveling, they are not permitted to be seated next to men! What's more, "next to" turned out to be "across the aisle from"!

Perhaps there was an airline molestation case in Britain that gave rise to this policy? And who said that only men could molest - Carol's daughter thought it so ridiculous that she commented it was tempting to touch the kid just to show that women could molest, too. (Before I - or she - gets flamed here, let's agree that of course molestation is no laughing matter.) At least they seemed to apply the policy to boys and girls, ignoring the old canard that men are more likely to molest boys.

The policy also raises some simple logistics issues. For example, lots of couples would simply book two seats, and worry onboard about who sat where. If a child had the window seat, would the wife be required to take the middle so the husband wouldn't be next to the kid? Indeed, it turned out that there was a man in the window next to Carol and her daughter; he preferred the aisle and they preferred the window/middle combination, so the child ended up sitting "next to" (across the aisle from) a man after all.

The whole situation reminded me of my TWA flight from New York to Tel Aviv. Half the passengers were observant Jews, who are forbidden by religion from touching a member of the opposite sex that they aren't married to - even shaking hands would be a no-no. It was Bedlam as passengers boarded and insisted they couldn't sit there because of the sex of the person next to them (accidental touching is just as bad, and probably inevitable on a long overnight flight). Finally the lead flight attendant announced that everybody could take their seats or get off the plane, but the door was closing in five minutes.

Back to unaccompanied minors, can anybody shed additional light on British Airways' policies? And does anybody know of other airlines with similar restrictions?