VietJet Air’s 2018 bikini calendar may set pulses racing – but using sex to sell seats doesn’t fly in conservative travel markets

Not for the first time, Vietnamese discount carrier VietJet Air is using sex to sell seats, unveiling a promotional calendar for 2018 featuring women in bikinis. The airline, which flies from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City and serves 23 domestic and 10 international destinations, is calling its VietJet Bikini Calendar a “hot item for all aviation fans and travellers”. So is this stunt really about promoting good customer service? The calendar includes images of scantily clad women posing as pilots, air traffic controllers, technicians, maintenance staff and flight attendants. All of this is in aid of “presenting a very interesting perspective to the airline’s excellent services and modern fleet”, according to the media release. Of course, the women in the calendar don’t work on any of the airline’s 49 aircraft. In fact, most of them are not even Vietnamese. Its tactics to boost sales appear to have worked. Launched in December 2011, VietJet Air now runs 300 flights a day on a fleet of Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, operating 40% of all domestic flights in Vietnam. <br/>