Bikini Airline Makes $7 Billion Jet Purchase

by Gary Leff

Vietnam’s VietJet has placed an order for 20 Airbus A330neo aircraft, valued at $7.4 billion at list prices. On average, airlines actually pay about 50% of list.

Years ago the airline was fined 20 million Dong over unapproved inflight entertainment. It wasn’t a problem with the installation of a seatback video system. Instead, 5 bikini-clad candidates in a local beauty contest performed a dance onboard the airline’s inaugural flight to Nha Trang. The 3-minute show had not been approved in advance, it was deemed a violation of aviation and security regulations. And the airline was fine — the equivalent of $959.

Since then they’ve branded themselves the bikini airline. And the airline’s CEO sees the campaigns and onboard stunts as empowering. Vietnam has a very conservative culture, and the public bikini stunts rebel against traditional notions of female dress in that society.

Although when they start service to some Islamic destinations they have to promise those governments that their flight attendants will be fully clothed.


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The carrier currently operates to nearly 100 destinations in 13 countries. They have an all-Airbus fleet with about 75 A320 family narrowbodies and 7 A330 widebody planes. They have an order for over 100 Airbus A321neos and 20 A321XLRs. Though they have an 8 year old order for about 100 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, none have yet been delivered.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Further proof that the A330NEO has a bright future, is a low cost alternative to the B787 to acquire, has comparable operating costs – and is selling in large part because Airbus can deliver its aircraft including its widebodies far closer to contracted schedules than Boeing can.

    I am rooting for Boeing’s return to normality but it is clear that Airbus is benefitting including for the A330NEO which has fairly good near-term production availability

  2. What is it about aviation and a Hooters-like atmosphere? This is an ongoing theme that won’t die.

  3. Plot twist, some of them in bikinis won’t be women, they’ll be lady-boys.

    What the market needs is an airline with only toxic big booty Latina’s as flight crew.

    Either way, it’s a welcome change of scenery from the haggard disheveled embarrassments posing as flight crew for a lot of US airlines.

  4. A bikini airline, what could possibly go wrong? Now show me an airline where the Flight Attendants wear diapers and we may have something! 🙂

  5. With an Airliner with half naked female stewardesses on board,I can imagine some hanky panky could happen between these women and passengers (Can you say Swing lol)

  6. The “bikini airline” stuff is clickbait. Gary made a connection to advertising campaigns from what – a decade ago? – in order to get you to read a mundane report about an Airbus order. I was in Vietnam a couple of years ago and the VietJet flight attendants wore normal outfits, which most likely they do 100% of the time, apart from those promotional shoots. In general women do like to dress up in traditional wear when visiting cultural sites, but on an every day basis, shorts and short skirts are fairly common. It’s not such a traditional conservative society today, especially among the young.

  7. Excellent. Less clothes the better, passengers should have that option too. Less AC, less fuel, win win all around lol.

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