Cathay Pacific Amid Sex Scandal With Pilot and Attendant

By: Bill Waters
08/16/2011 10:22 AM ET

Cathay Pacific has shut down a recent advertising campaign due to a sex scandal involving on its pilots and flight attendants.

The ads touted how each Cathay staff member “goes the extra mile,” but when photographs appeared to show two employees having a private moment on one of their planes, they had to cancel the ad campaign due to the embarrassment.

Cathay, based in Hong Kong, has faced a lot of embarrassment over the recent photographs and that caused a media storm in China. The images were stolen from a laptop computer that belonged to the pilot.

The air carrier said both employees were subsequently fired.

“I find any behavior that recklessly soils the reputation of our company or our team members as totally unacceptable,” John Slosar, Cathay’s CEO, said in a statement.

The advertising campaign’s launch was postponed by a month to replace one that’s been running for the past year, focusing on Cathay’s staff and its commitment to service travelers.

Several flight attendants and pilots were seen in the campaign with slogans that read “Meet the team that goes the extra mile to make you feel special.”

“We have decided to postpone the global launch of our next wave of our advertising campaign to October 1 as the original timing doesn’t suit us,” Cathay Pacific spokeswoman Carolyn Leung told CNN.

“We always build flexibility into our marketing strategy to give us room to adapt to changing circumstances. That’s what we are considering now, and the cost would be minimal,” she said.

The airline was founded in 1946 and its operations include passenger and cargo services to 114 destinations in 36 countries worldwide. In 2009, the company carried nearly 25 million passengers and over 1.52 million tons of cargo and mail.

The sex scandal is believed to have compromised the campaign, which included newspaper, magazine and billboard slots, according to a company spokesperson for Cathay Pacific.