In Awful PR Move, Malaysia Airlines Asks Customers What They’d Like to Do Before They Die

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PR snafus happen all the time. Humans are fallible, and dumb, and generally observe the world pretty obliquely, so it’s natural for mistakes to happen. Whatever. The only harm is some short-lived bad press.

But, but, but, when you are Malaysia Airlines, and you have had one of the most catastrophic summers in aviation history, you should really be cognizant of how every action you make could be perceived.

Like, don’t host a contest asking your frequent fliers to list what they’d like to put on their bucket list. A bucket list being the things you want to do before you die. Which if you flew Malaysia Airlines this summer… well. Yea. From the Sydney Morning-Herald:

The airline, which lost two planes this year in disasters that claimed 537 lives, committed the marketing gaffe when it launched a “My Ultimate Bucket List” campaign on Monday.

The campaign called on Australian and New Zealand residents to write their own bucket list and enter it into a competition to win flights to Malaysia and iPads but the competition appears to have since been withdrawn.

The online link to it is now redirecting traffic to a 404 error page.

Someone’s definitely getting fired for this, unless there’s no one left at the company. Maybe that explains how this got through.