It has been a bad year for Malaysian Airlines: following the disappearance of MH-370 (which to our knowledge still hasn't been found), and the crash of MH-17 (which to our knowledge still hasn't had its Kiev ATC recordings released) the country's national carrier reported [7]it would be delisted, and nationalized, with a follow up report last week that some 6,000 workers would be laid off [8]to enjoy the recovery "confirmed" by the market's all time highs on their own. The year not only got worse, but outright bizarre, macabre and morbid following a marketing ploy revealed last week in which would-be passengers were given a chance to win a ticket if only they shared their... bucket list?
According to the Malay Mail, [9] reported by Time [10], Malaysia Airlines launched a competition in Australia and New Zealand four days ago, according to media reports, in which it said it was giving away free economy-class tickets and free iPads. The competition name was, to say the least, bizarre: My Ultimate Bucket List. Contestants had to explain “What and where would you like to tick off on your bucket list?”
Where this goes from here hardly needs an explanation but here goes:
The Merriam-Webster definition of bucket list is “a list of things that one has not done before but wants to do before dying.” The association is horrific, given that 537 people lost their lives flying on the airline this year.
The contest appears to have since been withdrawn, with the original competition link [11]now leading to a 404 error page. A PDF of the competition terms and conditions could be found here [12]at time of publication, but besides that there no longer appear to be details of the competition on the MAS site.
The launch of the competition was picked up [13]in the Australian travel-industry press and even name-checked [14]in British tabloid the Daily Mail. But perhaps MAS has since realized that asking prospective passengers to think up a bucket list before accepting a free ticket on one of its planes might be construed as macabre.
This is not the first such tragedy related gaffe out of the Pacific Rim: "in 2003, the Hong Kong Tourism Board ran an ad [15]promising would-be visitors that “Hong Kong will take your breath away.” At the time, SARS — severe acute respiratory syndrome — had killed about 100 people, mostly in Hong Kong and China. But the ad ran in British and European print magazines — and there was no time to change the slogan before the presses started to roll."
That said, in a world in which fading celebrities need a massive "cloud" hacking to rekindle their idle glory, it would not be at all surprising if as this marketing gimmick goes viral, that traffic yearning for a flight on board the Malaysian airline will soar, and not just thanks to jihadist suicide bombers.
