Mexicana Airlines’ financial status may have gone south but ten stewardesses from the company battling bankruptcy are trying to send its status the opposite direction through a bit of “intimacy” – the young women stripping down, to boost up profits. Pitching in $8,00 apiece of their own funds, the flight attendants are hoping their new “pin-up” calendar creation can salvage one of the world’s oldest airlines and their jobs.
The Mexicana Airlines (Grupo Mexicana) flight attendants have scraped together a total of $80,000 so far – funds comprised entirely of the stewardesses’ own money -- in a budget slated to cover calendar production costs for their launch of a sexy, aviation-themed calendar.
The “pin-up” calendar has sparked a frenzy in the stewardesses’ home country of Mexico – the current run of the first 1,000 aviation-themed 2011 calendars selling out in entirety, before the calendar’s actual launch just one week ago.
The second “pin-up” print run of 3,000 more Mexicana Airlines calendars will be available for sale at twelve bucks apiece (149 pesos) as soon as the print run is completed.
The 2011 calendar features the Mexicana Airlines flight attendants in bikinis or scantily-altered versions of their former airline uniform.
Mexicana Airlines, which has debts totaling about $800 million, shut down all flights at the end of August, leaving passengers stranded and confused about the fate of one of the world’s oldest airlines.
Before the company filed for bankruptcy, the airline’s pilots and flight attendants rejected a Grupo Mexicana deal in August where the Mexicana Airlines’ proposal to staff included a cut of airline staffing by 40% and severe pay cuts: a pay cut of 41% for Mexicana Airlines pilots and an additional pay cut of 39% for the airlines’ stewardesses.
As of August 28, Mexicana Airlines and its affiliates MexicanaClick and MexicanaLink suspended all operations and flights indefinitely after its bankruptcy protection announcement. As fellow “oneworld” airlines partners, American Airlines and its regional affiliate of American Eagle announced that the two airlines would be assisting Mexicana Airlines customers -- through “offering” a special 20 percent discount off of any published fare for Mexicana ticket-holders for confirmed flight bookings on cancelled Mexicana flights through the bulk of October.
Mexicana Airlines customers, meanwhile, aren’t too happy: one former customer took the time to create a YouTube video about his Mexicana experience, with claims that the airline and its customer service gave him nothing but a run-around -- first telling the plane passenger that a ticket refund was the only option, then informing him that the airline's refund could take up to 90 days or even as long as 4 months. That customer claims that the way to successfully get money back from the bankrupt Mexicana airline is to actually contact the billed credit card.
The Mexicana Airlines flight attendants may be optimistic in their 2011 calendar run – it’s not clear whether one of the world’s oldest airlines will even be flying as of the 2011 New Year: Mexicana Airlines already filed for bankruptcy protection months ago, August 3 . The passenger airlines company was hoping it may be capable of resuming flights by mid-December 2010 – utilizing about 30% of the air transport company’s personnel – but, as the date nears and other airlines are pitching in to help stranded passengers, that hope isn’t looking quite so realistic.