Airline under fire over 'soft porn' painted plane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wED4KaFnCA Click for more photos America's Southwest Airlines, who banned a passenger from flying in 2007 because her outfit was too skimpy, has now covered one of its planes with the image of a swimsuit model. Photo: AFP March 4, 2009 Some American airline customers are fuming that a new airplane paint job has turned the family holiday into an adults-only affair. The Dallas-based airline Southwest Airlines unveiled the latest addition to its fleet this month, a Boeing 737 with a bikini-clad model painted on the fuselage. The temporary paint job is part of a promotional deal with Sports Illustrated to tout the magazine's annual swimsuit issue. Some passengers complain that they're being forced to board an aircraft plastered with soft porn. "Many women do not enjoy having their husbands exposed to explicit pictures or explaining to young children why the lady on the plane is 'showing her boobies'," wrote Chris and Sharon Kraemer of Midlothian, Texas, in a letter to the airline. "I would cancel my tickets if there was time to get a competitive rate." Numerous customers have chimed in with opinions on the aircraft's paint job, which features a giant image of Sports Illustrated cover model Bar Refaeli. The airline has received emails, letters and comments on its corporate blog about the promotion, spokeswoman Brandy King said. "Does anyone else find this kind of trashy for Southwest?" asked one customer on the carrier's blog. "Having a woman in a bikini on the side of the plane hardly seems like the epitome of the friendly, down-home airline I've grown accustomed to." King said about 25 per cent of the feedback has been negative, while nearly three-fourths of the comments have been supportive. "As with anything that's different and unique, you do hear from some people who disagree," King said. She added that airline executives spent a lot of time making sure the paint job was appropriate. "We wanted to make sure it was in good taste before we put it up on the aircraft," she said. The plane is deployed as needed like other aircraft in the fleet, King said. The paint job will be removed within a few months, she said, when the promotion ends. The complaints come after some religious groups expressed concern about adult content being streamed into aircraft cabins via in-flight internet services. The group, Focus on the Family, recently demanded American Airlines install filters on its in-flight wireless internet service to prevent adult sites from being viewed. The group said it was worried underage passengers could be exposed to online porn. Although American initially resisted calls to filter its service, executives with the Fort Worth-based airline later reversed course and installed software to block adult sites. Refaeli isn't the first attractive woman to be featured in a Southwest promotion. The airline aired television commercials in the 1970s starring flight attendants clad in hot pants and go-go boots, a uniform said to be favoured by co-founder Herb Kelleher. The pendulum swung in the opposite direction in 2007, when Southwest was portrayed as prudish after a flight attendant scolded passenger Kyla Ebbert for wearing an outfit deemed too skimpy. Ebbert went on a whirlwind tour of talk shows and interviews, complaining about her treatment on the flight. She later posed nude for Playboy's internet site and was photographed frolicking with Richard Branson, the flashy British industrialist who heads the Virgin Group. Southwest later apologised to Ebbert and launched a fare sale that included "mini-skirt prices". The bikini jet has some customers calling for a boycott of the airline. But others defend the promotion. "This is Southwest being Southwest ... having fun, not taking themselves too seriously, willing to take risks," wrote one customer on the airline's blog. "A true sign of marketing genius." Some questioned whether it would really do anything to increase revenue at a time when demand for travel is deteriorating. "How many teenage boys are paying customers?" one passenger asked. MCT
dude... sports illustrated is not porn =_____________=;;;;; these passengers with these complains should be forced to watch real porn, to see the difference lol anyways, i would love to fly on that plane, granted of course if the stewardesses dress skimpy
about time this happened... i don't see anything wrong with it.... hell you flip through a cosmo mag and find my scandalous images...
hehehe yeah, aircraft art been going for a long time. those warplanes have art on them too ~ and that is no way porn in the slightest ~
I think the new is taking this story a little to far..just for the sake of news...i mean sport illustrated puts out that issue every year and you don't hear people bitching or raving about it being on the new stand...i mean hell they even sell porno mags at the bookstore at the airports, how is this any different?
