They have already enraged Cathay Pacific's chief executive and cost a pilot and an air hostess their jobs. Now the notorious photographs of the couple's sex act in the cockpit of a plane have sent a multimillion-dollar global advertising campaign for the airline into a tailspin.
In an unfortunate twist, the circulation of images of a Chinese flight attendant performing a sex act on an expatriate pilot in newspapers and on the internet came days ahead of the planned launch of a new phase of Cathay Pacific's 'People and Service' marketing drive.
Featuring candid pictures of flight attendants, pilots and other airline employees in informal poses, the campaign carries the slogan: 'Meet the team who go the extra mile to make you feel special.'
Now, the campaign is under urgent review and the booking of billboards and newspaper and magazine slots worldwide may be cancelled in light of the sex photographs scandal, a management source said.
'The timing of this scandal really could not have been worse in marketing terms,' the source said. 'A whole new set of pictures of staff in off-duty poses has been taken for the next phase of what has been an enormously effective global campaign.
'But the scope for the slogan and the campaign to be misinterpreted, or ridiculed and lampooned, in light of the cockpit incident is obvious. So it looks like it's going to be postponed at least for a while.'