The Staggers

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What was easyJet thinking?

A case of remarkable wickedness or remarkable stupidity

By George Eaton Published 20 November 2009 17:08

In what must be one of the outstanding journalistic blunders of the year, easyJet has been forced to withdraw all copies of its in-flight magazine after complaints over a tasteless fashion shoot at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

What were they thinking? The airline has employed the classic defence of ignorance, insisting it was "not aware of the images until they appeared in print", but this won't do. It's a case of either remarkable wickedness or remarkable stupidity. I wouldn't want to be easyJet's PR man tonight . . .

You can read Stephen Morris's exclusive story in full here.

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12 comments

Mon, 2009-11-23 01:26 — TomGreen (not verified)

One does rather hope they do not contract out their aircraft maintenance in as cavalier a manner!

Mon, 2009-11-23 10:54 — Lameplanet (not verified)

Are you surprised? The fashion industry is as empty-headed and amoral as it gets. They probably didn't even know what the museum was about.

Fri, 2009-11-20 19:33 — Ade (not verified)

And in an ironic twist, Ink and easjet have a nomination in the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) Awards next week. The category? Best Use of Illustration.

Must have seemed a good idea at the time...

Fri, 2009-11-20 21:47 — Action Man (not verified)

Unbelievable. How could you EVER think that was a good idea?

Fri, 2009-11-20 22:21 — Alzaetia (not verified)

What about the models? Is ignorance of the Holocaust really so wide spread that the models themselves didn't understand what they were doing? Or are they just so morally degraded that they'll do anything for a job?
I'd be more ashamed of my daughter for posing in this picture than if she was a prostitute.

Fri, 2009-11-20 23:28 — eduardo (not verified)

from an artistic point of view ... the photos look beautiful and this 'controversy' is going to get a ton of free publicity for the museum. as if the museum people didn't sign off on it ... who are you kidding !

Sat, 2009-11-21 02:08 — Right? (not verified)

sorry, but I don't see what the issue is with this, in order to do a shoot the museum would have had to take some fees and granted rights to shoot at this location. In any case I don't see what the big fuss is being made about, it's not like fashion shoots have not been done at other memorial locations.

Sat, 2009-11-21 05:33 — Jonny (not verified)

I know for a fact that the team DID have written permission from the Jewish Museum that was also featured in the shoot. The museum was keen to ensure that visitors to Berlin go see these important sites first hand.

The Ink statement says that their aim was to raise awareness and encourage people to see visit the museum, memorial and other key Berlin sites.

Sat, 2009-11-21 10:19 — www.Jewish140.com (not verified)

What does seem really strange is that no one at easyJet HQ checks the magazine from Ink before it gets published?
Usually these customer magazines are approved by the client before it goes out.
Or maybe easyJet doesn't check the pages before they are published.
either way it exposes easyJet for not having any processes in place.

Sat, 2009-11-21 16:21 — CharlieBarlie (not verified)

There's no doubt that Easyjet checked and saw these pages before they went to press. Everyone knows in client publishing the client signs off everything. So it's clear whoever signed it off at Easyjet wasn't very clever. They are blatantly trying to shift blame. Also there's no way the museum couldn't have granted permission for this – but maybe they didn't know it was a fashion shoo, but they have guards there, how could they have missed what must have been a full fashion crew with hair and make up and stylist etc..... Still what a crazy idea in the first place, it's straight out of Bruno or Zoolander. When they planned it you'd think they'd throw idea out of the window the moment it was mentioned. Kind of crazy to shoot such s frivolous things as fashion on a memorial to six+ million dead. Madness!

Sat, 2009-11-21 16:41 — ontherun (not verified)

if you' ve ever visited the memorial you d know how huge it is and how easy to get lost in the -I did - visited by 1000s of tourists daily taking pics - easy to do a fashion shot without being caught ... however - permission or not - it was just a dump idea to do it and think no one would complain