Tiếng Việt
普通话
Vietnam’s biggest budget airline has been ensnared in a scandal after parading bikini-clad models through a flight carrying the national football team, in an incident that caused a popular furore and highlighted companies’ tolerance of sexism in the conservative, Southeast Asian nation.
VietJet was forced to apologise after photographs from the flight showing the women posing with or touching the footballers, some of whom looked uncomfortable, circulated widely on social media. Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Monday vowed to investigate the incident, which happened on a flight from Changzhou, China to Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, on Saturday.
Vietnamese state-controlled media reported on Tuesday that aviation authorities fined VietJet 40m dong, or less than $2,000 on flight safety grounds. The uproar comes as companies around the world adapt to shareholders’, regulators’ and employees’ changing standards regarding sexually charged behaviour, sexism and the treatment of women in the workplace.
The #MeToo movement that has ensnared male chief executives, actors and others around the world who sexually harassed or assaulted underlings has barely made a dent in Vietnam. Casual or overt sexism are widely tolerated in the Communist-ruled nation, notwithstanding the growing number of women in senior corporate roles. However, for many Vietnamese the bikini incident marred a cherished national moment, after Vietnam’s national team placed second after Uzbekistan in the Asian Football Confederation Championship on Saturday.
The victory brought exuberant national celebrations, as Vietnamese poured into the streets at the weekend and draped their homes and vehicles with the red-and-yellow national flag. Vietjet’s co-founder and chairman, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, is Vietnam’s only female billionaire, and sometimes described as Southeast Asia’s only woman to make more than $1bn in her own right rather than through family wealth.
Ms Nguyen said the bikini display was a “spontaneous act”, adding that “the urgency of the flight, the harsh weather and the complicated procedures in China were among the reasons that led to the airline’s mistakes”. However, her claim that it was spontaneous was widely derided. Some Vietnamese angered by the incident called for a boycott of the airline.
“Vietnamese people are influenced by Asian values and traditional culture, and they prefer that women appear in a traditional way on an important national occasion,” said Pham Hai Chung, a lecturer at the Academy of Journalism and Communication in Hanoi. “And of course they do not accept brands using sexism in this event, which happened for the first time in the history of Vietnamese football.”
Ms Pham noted that a number of influential voices had called for the women involved in the incident not to be subjected to hate speech. “I think this is a good sign of the influence of the #MeToo movement in Vietnam,” she said. Ms Nguyen, Vietjet’s chairman, is one of an elite club of Vietnam’s super-rich who began building their fortunes when they were students in eastern Europe as the region was embracing market capitalism.
Forbes estimates her net worth as $3.2bn. Her spokeswoman declined a request from the Financial Times for an interview. Since its founding in 2011, VietJet has earned the nickname “the bikini airline” for sometimes dressing its flight crew in swimsuits. It publishes an annual calendar featuring skimpily attired female models, which has come under criticism in Vietnam.
The budget airline has grabbed about a 40 per cent share of Vietnam’s domestic air travel market, providing intense competition to Vietnam Airlines, the national carrier. The company went public last year with what was at the time Vietnam’s biggest initial public offering.