Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao became Vietnam’s first female billionaire by introducing bikini and lingerie-clad female flight attendants in her budget airline named VietJet. A large number of conservative airline passengers mocked asking “Do you want to rename Vietjet ‘Vietjerk’, or ‘Vietsex’?”
In January 2018, VietJet – best known for its bikini-clad air hostesses – came under fire for sending models in barely their costumes to join the footballers heading home from China. Social media in the communist nation erupted over the photos, including one of an awkward-looking young man being embraced by a model in a low-cut silver belly bikini and red lingerie.
Amongst the travelers, VietJet is known as bikini air.
In December 2019, VietJet began its flight between India and Vietnam, while it is expected to start flights with a number of Asian nations by the end of this year.
The Vietnamese budget airline VietJet, popularly known as the Bikini Airline, hogged the limelight in 2011 by carrying an advertisement that featured its crew in bikinis.
Commenting on VietJet, which has won many award for this excellent inflight services, Kate Taylor wrote in the Insider, When investigating which airline I should take from Seoul, South Korea to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I stumbled upon something I had never seen on a flight before: bikini-clad flight attendants, working for a budget Vietnamese airline called Vietjet Air.
Vietjet has been known for its racy advertising since soon after it launched in 2011. The airline’s YouTube page has a number of videos of flight attendants dancing in bikinis on flights. In 2019, the airline released Vietjet Bikini Calendar — a calendar that features a woman in bikinis for every month of the year.
A little digging revealed that Vietjet was more than just an airline with bikini-clad flight attendants. Vietjet Air was named “Asia Pacific Low-Cost Airline of the Year” by Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) in 2019.
Airlinerating[dot]com named it the “Best Ultra Low-Cost Airline” last year.
And, a quick perusal of flights to and within Vietnam revealed it was often the least expensive option when booking tickets.
While the bikini stunt attracted a lot of controversy for objectifying women and inviting sexual harassment, it also shot the local carrier to fame and made its CEO, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, the first female billionaire in the country. And the real news is – VietJet does not have bikini or lingerie-clad flight attendants. It was just their PR stunt. Although a large number of its passengers say – there are bikini-clad flight attendants in some of the destinations of VietJet. We have contacted the airline for giving us details on this matter. On hearing from them, we shall publish more reports. Until then – Ciao!
