Inflight bikini parade fined
August 10, 2012 by AFP
Filed under Aviation, News, Southeast Asia
HANOI, 10 August 2012: A Vietnamese airline has been fined for hosting a mid-flight dance by bikini-clad beauty pageant contestants without first gaining permission, state media said Thursday.
Low-cost carrier VietJet Air was fined US$1,000 by the nation’s aviation authorities for organising the Hawaiian-themed dance to celebrate its maiden flight between Ho Chi Minh City and the tourist hub of Nha Trang, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said.
Five women, all candidates in a local beauty contest, performed the three-minute dance on the 3 August flight while passengers recorded the show on camera phones and later posted clips online, the paper added.
The airline “violated local aviation regulations” by organising “an unapproved show on a flight,” Nguyen Trong Thang, chief inspector of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, was quoted as saying in the report.
Thang added the pictures were taken while mobile phones were in flight-safe mode and did not pose any risk.
The incident has stirred public debate in conservative Vietnam after photographs and video clips of the sultry performance spread on the Internet.
© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse
The fine pales in comparison to the amount of publicity this generated. I think Air Asia should follow suit on all flights to a beach area/island (after all, they wear blue jeans on some flights).
Good grief. This is another airline-having-fun story that means absolutely nothing on my planet, the one about the celebrity’s wife posing for photos in a jump seat.
So what. Big deal. It is more likely that the airline was fined because those who get to do the fining were not invited on the flight. The airline got a ton of publicity for only $1,000. I don’t see a bikini anyway. I see a sarong, a top and covered shoulders. If I had a body like those flight attendants I would want to show it off, too. Unfortunately, I don’t so I show it off only on the beaches at Nha Trang.
Zzzzzzz. Wake me when you have something important to report.