In global airline marketing, idioms must be handled carefully

In 1987, Braniff Airlines ran ads on television, on radio and in newspapers flaunting the fact that its jets were equipped with all-leather seats. Spanish-language radio ads in the Florida market were the first to reveal an unintended double entendre. Braniff had translated its "fly in leather" slogan as fly "en cuero," which sounds like Spanish slang for "fly naked."

Some speculated the gaffe was an intentional move by marketing to attract attention, but the executive who developed the ad confirmed that the double meaning was accidental.

The airline industry is international by nature, and airlines must adapt their business and language to thrive in other countries. Companies like Braniff have seen many successes, but they have also occasionally failed to anticipate the connotations of a foreign idiom or figurative regional expression in marketing.

Marketing messages often contain colloquial or idiomatic language to evoke an emotional response in the target audience. However, some of this language can unintentionally carry undesirable meanings in translation and may even harm marketing efforts.

An airline ticket office in Copenhagen, Denmark, once reportedly displayed an English sign reading, "We take your bags and send them in all directions." Such a sign may technically be correct and sound perfectly fine to a non-native speaker of English. However, a native speaker detects a subtle implication that the airline is disorganized and likely to lose the luggage. In this case, we do not know if perhaps the company knew about this connotation and simply chose to be honest.

A billboard advertisement for Uzbekistan Airways in Tashkent International Airport evokes wariness in its English-speaking travelers by featuring a jet buried in the clouds with only the tail visible and the phrase "good luck" appearing below it in large letters.

This phrase is usually very positive and was almost certainly intended to express well wishes such as "have a nice flight" or "bon voyage," but the end result in context is a far cry from those more reassuring and positive phrases. Instead, the message passengers receive is "good luck — you'll need it!"

In the book "Blunders in International Business," author David A. Ricks writes of another airline promotion lost in translation. This one caused serious PR damage.