Video of Funny and Controversial Air NZ Airline Ad on their Cougar Customers

The Air New Zealand national carrier was already causing turbulence with its latest uniform range, which critics said made women look like drag queens in Russian military garb.

Now they’ve ruffled the feathers of women’s rights groups and interest organisations with an online promotion portraying the habits of the mature single woman.

In the Discovery Channel-style documentary clip, a so-called cougar is shown “starving itself on sparse vegetation during the day then hunting large slabs of meat at night” by stalking young men at bars.

Despite the man’s attempts to ward off the woman’s advances, the cougar has “not tasted fresh meat for days” and drags her prey to an inner-city apartment.

The promotion encourages women 35-plus to send in photographs of themselves out on the town with their “cougar mates” to go in the draw for a deal including a flight and ticket to a sporting event.

An airline spokeswoman said the campaign was supposed to be “light-hearted” but some older women had “taken a bit of offence to it”.

“(They) felt it was an unfair kind of blanket comment,” she said.

Many didn’t, however, with 60 women signing up to go in to win flights, tickets and cougar costumes to attract the attention of young males.