I found myself so drawn to the clever subtlety of the message (one former model = all the flight attendants must be good looking) that I almost overlooked how this ad is *only* directed at male travelers.

Hello? Straight women fly too, you know.

Maybe that's where they derive 90% of their revenue, and maybe this kind of emotional advertising is highly effective. However, it does strike me as terribly sexist & one-sided to advertise an airline in this way.

As a woman, if I were planning to travel to Asia, I'm pretty sure it would take more than a former model projecting as much personality as a blow-up doll to entice me to buy my ticket from Cathay Pacific, even if the fare is great. Personally I'd be interested in knowing about the airline's reliability, the schedule & the quality of the food served...

I wonder to what degree this draws on a specifically racialized femininity — the stereotypical depiction of Asian women as particularly submissive and docile. But since this ad ran in the U.K., I don’t know if that stereotype is as relevant.

Historically, doesn't that stereotype basically COME from the UK (or, more accurately, the British Empire)?

I think the racial bit is very prominient here. Imagine that Yau had been caucasian instead - the attitude would look very out of place for us in anythiing but a vintage ad. The same goes for her looks. The bun and fringe may just be the most recognisablt "asian" hairstyle there is to people in the western world. The stance has the same connotations to anyone who is familiar with anime. A western woman might take a similar stance, but it's almost always balanced by something else, like a firm footing or looking stright into the camera. Lastly, I think we should bear in mind that Qatar airways and Thai air recently has used asian women as a way to convey luxury and service in their ads, so this may very well be an attempt to cash in on that trend.

i also thought of the korean air commercials that have been out for a while. they use this beautiful blue that is very attractive to me, so i notice. but i am female and don't fly, so i analyze more... i find they are very sexual and there is also that message of asian women as submissive, servant and sexual in a very "innocent" or maybe it is childlike way.. i am not sure. i think this ad fits into the same theme.

I expect this ad was targeted at Caucasian men who are enamored of the media "ideal" of the Asian woman. Western Caucasian men are taught by screen fiction that almost all Asian women are naturally docile, sensitive, deferent, submissive, serene, silent, sweet, petite, modest-yet-fawning, naive-yet-wise, otherwordly, and in need of a male protector (the Asian women who don't fit this profile are allegedly all martial arts experts).

I don't know what more specific undertones this ad would carry in the UK, but in the US Asian women are presented to Caucasian men as "less of a hassle" than Caucasian women, in the same way that Caucasian women are presented to African-American men than as "less of a hassle" than African-American women.

It's a racialized ideal of a woman "untainted" by any but the most superficial feminism.

I wonder to what degree this draws on a specifically racialized femininity — the stereotypical depiction of Asian women as particularly submissive and docile. But since this ad ran in the U.K., I don’t know if that stereotype is as relevant. Readers, what say you?

Trust me - this stereotype is just as prevalent in the UK as the US, particularly for the older generations who still refer to Chinese restaurants as "chinks" (and will insist that it's not problematic because they're referring to the food, of course, not the people!). The UK historically has had much the same relationship with immigrants from Asia as we have.. for the most part, Chinese and Indian immigrants worked in the service industry, especially in restaurants/take-aways, so there's that image of the ever-helpful Asian rushing to please their customers. Several of my older male relatives will to this day (to my horror and mortification, especially in public!) make comments to the effect of "I should have married a little Chinese woman who would cook me curries every night," particularly as a way of chastising their wives for not running after their butts fast enough, or for daring to complain about having to do so. So yeah, for the male British traveler, I imagine the idea of being pampered by a beautiful, demure Asian woman is just as appealing as it is to men here.

And as P. noted above, it's quite striking how the ad seems to ignore women travelers. I guess most of their customers in the UK probably are flying on business, and it's assumed that business travelers are overwhelmingly male, so... It would be interesting to know the context of the ad, though - I would be less surprised if it were in, say, a business magazine than if it were on the side of a bus stop.

I would hope that an airline attendant would be humble, modest and willing to listen. I see those as very positive qualities for an attendant and for most service employees in general. What is the alternative? Assertiveness, immodesty and being unwilling to listen? I suppose those might make for a well-rounded human being but in my opinion those are not qualities that would necessarily make for an enjoyable customer service experience.

The real crux of this issue is that they chose an Asian woman to highlight these qualities (which are presumably representative of all of their attendants, or so the company would hope). And certainly if it were an American airline promoting this advertisement, I would be in agreement. However, is Cathay Pacific not based in Asia? I would be curious as to what percentage of their attendants are Asian. It may just be that depicting an Asian female is representative of their actual workforce.

I saw this ad some time ago and was totally bothered by how Cathy Pacific made their flight attendants into passive, eager-to-please, Asian-fetish objects. I went to their website later and found that they *did* profile a couple men, but I think the ratio of women to men was something like 15:1.

It's odd to see that airlines still market themselves in this way -- I thought young, pretty flight attendants were only a major draw when air travel was new (old 60s advertising, anyone?). These days you'd think that people would have other, more important, considerations to make, such as costs, flight accessibility, and in-flight food and movies!

Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, and Cathay are all guilty of this. Unlike in the West where flight attendants are ostensibly not selected for looks, in Korea there are actually preparatory academies (hagwons) for young women to prepare for the flight attendant selection process. There are strict height and weight requirements, and if you don't have the right "look" you just aren't selected by the airlines. Many young women in Korea want to be a flight attendant not because of the glamour, but because it is one of the few occupations where being single and having a financially independent life (i.e. - less serious pressure to get married and have kids) is OK.

I flew Cathay once to Asia long before this ad campaign ever ran, and I remember being struck by almost all of the traits highlighted in the advertisement. The flight attendants were all women of about 28 years, strikingly beautiful, and it was far and away the best service I have ever received on a flight. As far as them being... well, acting interested in you and what you like, I think of that as service, and not particularly gendered. The Air France guy does the same thing. Maybe I'm a pig, I'm definitely privileged and all that, but I loved it and would fly again with them in an instant.

Interestingly, the same campaign (meet your flight attendants) runs for Cathay here in Hong Kong where I live. But I have never seen this particular ad before - instead, they 'enjoy sports' or 'love travel', AND there are older women as well as young ones in the series.

Strangely, at first I didn't look too closely I assumed this was a retro ad. I was surprised when I came to the second image and noticed the very modern typesetting/palette/text and saw it was actually an ad from the present day.

Not only does the chauvinistic, male-comfort-oriented first image feel antiquated in attitude, but it also seems purposely formatted to recall north american advertising from the 1960s. Notice the large, single-subject image filling the page, the select bolded quote, and the large block of copywriting at the bottom of the page. I think it's purposely set up to play on a certain type of male nostalgia. Overall, this formatting seems to say "Our female flight attendants still have that old 1960s submissive attitude!"

The east Asian airlines definitely play up that stereotype to attract Western travelers. Many Western travelers go to Asia either looking to interact with submissive Asian women or looking forward to doing so between other items. My experience with the tourism-oriented airlines in east Asia is that they market themselves as being part of your exotic/fun/exciting trip to Asia.

Japan Airlines (JAL), for instance, sometimes has some similar ads in the West (you've posted about it here before) but within Japan they're mostly talking about prices and legroom.

"Karina went from fashion model to flight attendant — and still doesn’t think that life has had any real ups and downs. "

Translation - We have a lot of hot ex-models who aren't bitter about the day they turned 25 and were immediately fired for being too "old" for their glamorous model jobs. They understand that models need to be extra young in advertisements because that's what men like to see. They also understand that they are now in the "average" class (we're in a male-led extremely high-standards world) and so it's expected for them to find more suitable jobs that still please men.

In this ad the model looks like one of those uncanny valley dolls... like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbFFs4DHWys

Also, why are all these advanced robots women? It seems like a sick Pygmalion thing.

"P" - I immediately thought the same thing - the constantly reinforced b.s. that advertisers do, left, right, and sideways: appeal to the desires of, apparently, the only people who fly - straight Western MEN. As a woman, I am not particular about my flight attendants being female, attractive, passive or interested in my personal life - I am lucky enough to know a lot of men who aren't, either. Suffice to say that none of us will EVER buy a ticket to fly with Cathay.

Caucasian female business travellers to Asia are likely to be a very small minority for a number of reasons entirely unrelated to the airline marketing message. I expect the airline marketers correctly identified this and therefore didn't bother to aim their ad at them.

As much as I think the ad is obnoxious, I hate to admit that it is probably effective, purely because it is aimed squarely at a demographic that generally responds well to this kind of message, and which doesn't examine it deeply enough to find it offensive.

I think this ad, at first appears sexist. And I'm not saying it doesn't play up to the Asian fetish (note: Who's to say only men have an Asian fetish?). However, the qualities of submissiveness and caring etc are not purely imagined by the West. In relation to Japan at least, before the British arrived the women were considered lower citizens, for instance it was frowned upon for them to be unsupervised with any man that wasn't family. Now, there are just cultural differences. I'm not saying it's ok for women to be oppressed, but there is a difference between oppression and cultural difference. This is the same for any country, there are general qualities that ring true for not all of, but many of their men or women.
A typical English one, for example, is that they do not like to complain or make a fuss. It's also probably quite typical of the West to consider any cultural differences as being "wrong" or "outdated" compared to their own.

As for the women who are stating that they don't care about whether their flight attendant is an attractive female who cares about your needs - I'm sure you would care if there was something you required, and your flight attendant was busy talking the ear off another passenger or member of staff as opposed to listening to the needs of the passengers. It's also worth noting that although the flight attendant pictured is attractive, and her prior modeling career is highlighted (sex does sell, the only thing that's changed there is that men are also being used to sell in the same way) that she is not otherwise sexualised. Her uniform is not form fitting or exposing, another thing a female passenger can be pleased about.
As someone else pointed out, it is an Asian airline, meaning most of their staff are Asian. I don't know this for sure, but I also expect they have a greater majority of female staff.
I think people are quick to be offended, often highlighting their own close-mindedness.

It's not only that- this is also a "meet our Ukrainian brides" type ad- for an airline! You don't just buy that airline ticket, you will get this docile submissive foreign bride.

If I'm travelling my plane, I want flight attendants that can do the job. I'd be much happier with a competent, if loud, enthusiastic staff and couldn't care less about their looks. In fact, a chatty member of staff is a wonderful thing, someone -genuinely- interested in a conversation! But I guess airlines are too busy really to have chatty hosts.

That said, the weight restrictions mentioned above are less shocking when you think about how thin the aisles in economy are.

They are not submissive at all in their new video ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=INIMb_D1PRE

Interesujace!
http://punkt30.blogspot.com/