Air New Zealand has removed the in-flight safety video featuring a number of Sports Illustrated models after it was branded “sexist” by an online petition.

The video showed bikini-clad models, such as Christie Brinkley, Hannah Davis, Jessica Gomes, Ariel Meredith, and Chrissy Teigen, demonstrating the “beauty of safety” with airline equipment and emergency procedures.

A number of people were offended by the video and an online petition to force Air New Zealand to remove the ‘sexist’ video received 11,000 signatures.

The petition, created by Australian Natasha Young, stated:

“Air NZ finds it appropriate to reinvent the in-flight safety video with a celebration of Sports Illustrated 50th anniversary. A safety video is to alert passengers on what to do in an emergency; it should not be an excuse to objectify the sexualised female body.

“This video completely disregards passengers who find it offensive for religious reasons, who have body image struggles, who are parents concerned about their children’s impressionable nature, who believe women deserve more respect, and who have teenage daughters who deserve more respect. This video is culturally insensitive; it disregards those who are conservative by nature and are uncomfortable with its imagery and disregards passengers who have been exposed to sexual assault. This video creates an unnecessarily difficult and uncomfortable working environment for its female staff, which goes against the entire nature of safety.”

Air new Zealand have now replaced the flight safety video with new footage featuring Bear Grills, but deny that this was in response to claims of sexism or the petition, but contend that the change was part of the companies regular updates to its media offerings.

A spokesperson said:

“As scheduled we began the process of phasing in the Bear Essentials of Safety video featuring Bear Grylls on our fleet around a week ago and this process is almost complete.”