YouTube/Air New Zealand
Air New Zealand will no longer show an in-flight safety video that many called sexist and offensive to women.
"Safety in Paradise" was released in February in conjunction with the Sports Illustrated 50th anniversary. It features five swimsuit models including Christie Brinkley, Jessica Gomes, Chrissy Teigen, Hannah Davis, and Ariel Meredith.
The four-minute spot shows the five models frolicking on a tropical beach, demonstrating typical air safety tasks including buckling a seatbelt, inflating a life vest, and putting on an oxygen mask. The only difference is that they do it entirely in bikinis.
YouTube/Air New Zealand
Young's petition, "Remove the sexist in-flight safety video #AirNZsexism," received over 11,000 signatures. It claims that "Safety in Paradise" is insensitive and "forces itself upon the passengers" because they can't turn off the video if it makes them uncomfortable.
Young argues that it is completely inappropriate to show something like this on an airline:
"This video completely disregards passengers who find it offensive for religious reasons, who have body image struggles, who are parents concerned about their children's impressionable nature, who believe women deserve more respect, and who have teenage daughters who deserve more respect."
Mashable reports that Air New Zealand says it's not removing the video from circulation as a result of this petition, but instead had always planned to stop running it at this time of the year.
Air New Zealand is known for transforming boring and repetitive flight safety videos into something more exciting like this ">Hobbit inspired video or this Richards Simmons filled spot. This tropical bikini party, however, took it one step too far for some. The airline will now show fliers a video featuring "Man vs. Wild" star Bear Grylls.
Here's the full "Safety in Paradise" video: