SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Air China says it has removed copies of its in-flight magazine which contained an article that told visitors traveling to London to take extra precautions with the town’s large ethnic-minority residents.
The airline said in a Sept. 8 statement the magazine used “inappropriate” language and said that the article didn’t represent its views. It also forwarded an email from the magazine’s publisher apologizing to Air China and saying the fault lay with an “editing mistake.”
The article had stated that “London is generally a safe place to travel, however precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people.”
A British lawmaker said Sept. 7 that he had written China’s ambassador to Britain, demanding an apology for the “blatantly untrue and racist statements.”
I have written to the Chinese Ambassador about the balant racism of Air China https://t.co/hRNsiBjB0F
— Virendra Sharma MP (@VirendraSharma) September 7, 2016
After an internal discovery of the article, Air China officials removed all copies from its planes, and demanded that the publishers of ‘Wings of China’ seriously learn from this lesson, strengthen their content review and avoid making similar mistakes,” the airline said. The contents came to light after a journalist tweeted the snippet.
A piece of advice in Air China inflight magazine. What does @MayorofLondon think? @CNBCi @SeamusConwell @cnbcSri pic.twitter.com/u7SGfiyuXA
— Haze Fan (@Hazeology) September 6, 2016