This bet was attacked by feminists (rightly? or too sensitive?) : the idea of it being a humiliating punishment for a respectable businessman having to dress up like a woman and serve other men.
So it was my understanding that Virgin backed away from this bet and tried to downplay it.
I'm a bit surprised by this picture cropping up on the website. Am I being hypersensitive? No-one else seems to have picked up on this aspect in the comments yet.
edit: to clarify, here's the comment threads on a jezebel, a website with a significantly more active female membership
http://jezebel.com/richard-branson-serves-juice-on-the-airli...
Some examples -
It's so disrespectful to their cabin crew (particularly female cabin crew, and also women in general) that they're dressing up as them for a laugh.
But being a woman is a punchline, right? Because being female is about as low, ridiculous and debased as a person can get, riiiiight?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who had that reaction; I was too afraid to say anything lest I be accused of having no sense of humour
So I don't think that I'm making this up, or alone in thinking this. There's definitely a discussion to be had.