Jaunted

Air Arabia Has New Tricks Up Its Sleeve

11/26/2007 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Air Arabia, Low Cost Carriers, LCCs, Middle East (all tags)

You might remember Middle East LCC Air Arabia as the one who used to use South Park characters in their advertising. On the other hand, you might know Air Arabia because of the incredibly long name of its founding father, His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qassimi (ruler of Sharjah) who agreed to set the whole thing up in early 2003.

These days, Air Arabia is going from strength to strength, but it's using candy to do so. Flights now head over most parts of the Middle East, including Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia and then further afield to India, Turkey and Bangladesh. The current wacky advertising features "bite-size holidays", which mean some candies resembling M&Ms are getting a big workout.

The candies must be doing OK for them, because with 34 additional planes on order, Air Arabia only looks like getting bigger. That's definitely sweet.

Related Stories:
· Air Arabia [Official Site]
· Air Arabia Already Adept at Aeronautics [Jaunted]
· South Park Goes to the Middle East [Jaunted]

[Photo: Air Arabia]

0 Comments - Add Yours by amandak

South Park Goes to the Middle East

4/14/2006 at 11:35 AM
Tags: Cartoons, Television, UAE (all tags)

For the section of our reading demographic that overlaps with South Park viewers, you may have heard about the censorship to-do surrounding Wednesday's episode. The episode, which contained a show within a show (just like Hamlet!) controversy about Family Guy showing an image of Muhammad that was censored by FOX, was censored itself by Comedy Central.

Issues of free speech aside, it's interesting that while Comedy Central is worried that South Park may spark unrest in the Arab and Muslim world, the Arab world is pretty positively disposed towards South Park. So positively disposed, in fact, that recent startup carrier Air Arabia, based out of Sharjah Airport in the United Arab Emirates, has a picture of a swarthy looking Kyle (pictured, though it could be Stan) from the show on the front page of their web site. Actually, there are several versions, including Kyle wearing a fez and a dishdasha.

Keep your eyes peeled to see if Comedy Central tries to censor those images, too. There is no religion holier than copyright law, after all.

Related Stories:
·   South Park Creators Skewer Own Network [AP]  
·   Air Arabia & South Park? [Online Travel Review]  
·   Air Arabia[Official Site]

2 Comments - Add Yours by AVB