Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Sex Sells for Airlines

                  In an article by Ramy Inocencio Frances Cha the age old question of "do sexy flight attendants sell seats" is asked. The answer for the Thailand airline, Nok Air, seems to be yes. Early in the year they began a campaign with a photo shoot of their flight attendants in bikinis (for those who don't know, Nok Air's flight attendants start their job at the age of 23 with beauty and weight regulations, and don't last more than 5 years on average). They posted the shoot on Facebook and immediately received 200,000 likes. It also increased their international passenger percentage from 10% to 18% and created huge publicity for the small domestic airline.  While the "sexy" stewardess has long gone the way of the dinosaur in America and most countries in Europe, it is standard practice in Asia. Most airlines in Asia have similar unofficial requirements for their stewardesses and aviation schools of the region preach physical fitness. For me personally I do not take issue with this. The labor pool to pick from is so vast that airlines can make whatever requirements they want and there will still be too many qualified applicants to hire. While there are moral and ethical issues behind such practices, there is no legal issue at stake. Nok Air and other Asian airlines are trying to be more appealing to their target market and they feel that this way is the best way to do so. Who are we to say they're wrong?

My question to whoever read what I wrote is this:
Do you believe that there should be laws in place to stop this? Also (if you are against the above mentioned practice) in America why aren't there laws that don't prevent models from having unofficial physical requirements?

Or, with the above question in mind, answer me this:

 If a company is trying to promote or create an image for themselves what makes it acceptable/unacceptable for them to promote/create it?  

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/20/travel/asia-flight-attendants/index.html?iref=allsearch 

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