Flight Attendant Fired Over Onboard Lingerie Selfies — Then She Took The Airline To Court

China Southern fired a veteran flight attendant after she posted lingerie selfies from a delayed flight before passengers boarded, turning a brief WeChat post into a years-long court fight over image, discipline, and how far airlines can go in policing crew behavior. What began as a seemingly easy termination became much messier once judges started asking whether the airline’s rules were clear, proportionate, and even in force at the time.

The crewmember Guo was a China Southern chief flight attendant assigned to flight CZ3547 from Guangzhou to Shanghai on October 12, 2019. While the flight was delayed for air traffic control and before passengers boarded, she posted a WeChat Moments update with two lingerie photos and text along the lines of “the flight is delayed, so I came to the lavatory to try a new ‘naked-feel’ product … it feels like wearing nothing … I wear 75B.”

She deleted it about ten minutes later, but it was screenshotted and reported. The 6:55 p.m. departure eventually left at 8:06 p.m.

The flight attendant had been with China Southern since 2005. The airline said she used work time for private business, violated its online rules, and posted “indecent” images contrary to public morals and the company’s brand. On October 18, 2019 they terminated her.

Her position was that termination was disproportionate. The lingerie had been a gift from a friend, she was only helping promote it, and had no profit motive. Only a subset of her 1,000+ contacts could see the post, and other crew were also on their phones because there were no passengers aboard yet.

• After the internal discipline process, she went to labor arbitration on 2020-06-03.

• The Guangzhou Labor and Personnel Dispute Arbitration Commission held the dismissal unlawful on July 22, 2020 and ordered the airline to pay RMB 212,735.63 (US$30,909) in wages. Then it went to Baiyun District Court.

• The court ruled that the post was improper, but the airline hadn’t justified the termination with “serious circumstances” because company rules were vague and overbroad, failing to clearly define what “serious” was, and the post was done during staff rest time rather than work time. There was no safety impact, broad dissemination, or reputational injury to the airline.

• The airline appealed to the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. It found that one of the airline’s rules against the conduct hadn’t even taken effect yet in 2019. However, this wasn’t a ‘rest period’ – under Ministry of Transportation rules it was a duty period when she was trying on lingerie, taking photos, editing them, and posting them. Any crew distraction during duty can create safety risk. This was promotional content for underwear, not just casual social media, and her airline identity was visible to her contacts. The photos even included the aircraft.

  According to this court, posting underwear photos from the cabin during duty harmed the airline’s image, public morals, and China Southern’s safety reputation, so the airline’s zero-tolerance response was reasonable and her termination was lawful.

The flight attendant said she wouldn’t release the screenshot while the matter was still being litigated. However several blurred images circulate on social media.

As best I can tell, her case was accepted for further appeal by the Guangdong High Court, but no ruling has yet been reached. So it appears to be ongoing, which is why reports in Chinese media continue to show up.

I’m reminded of Delta Air Lines flight attendant Ellen Simonetti who was fired in the early days of blogging, and before modern social media. She became a poster child for the new online world colliding with work expectations.

She had started a blog, Queen of Sky: Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant in September 2003 but was suspended and later fired for posing in uniform and on planes, combined with her online commentary (she never expressly identified her employer by name).

Some of her photos were mildly suggestive. Part of the issue at the time was that in what was then a wild west of expectations, other flight attendants were escaping discipline for similar activities. Now the risks and consequences are clearer. At a minimum, posting online can serve as pretext for dismissal if an airline wants a reason. It’s especially dangerous for more senior – and therefore more expensive – cabin crew, since they can be replaced by cheaper new hires.