Air China has been on the news a lot over the past 24 hours and for all the wrong reasons (see below).
The Wings of China in-flight magazine that you were able to find from the seat pocket (now removed) gave some racially loaded travel advice for those going to London.
Here’s the text in question:
Here’s an excerpt from BBC (access the piece here):
The magazine warned passengers to take “precautions” when visiting parts of London mainly populated by “Indians, Pakistanis and black people”.
It was distributed on Air China flights in September.
Air China Media, which publishes the Wings of China magazine, said it wished to apologise to “readers and passengers who are feeling uncomfortable”.
It added: “This inappropriate description… was purely a work mistake by the editors and it’s not the magazine’s views.
“We will immediately recall this entire issue of magazines and draw lessons from this incident.”
Conclusion
It is unfortunate that they ended up printing inaccurate advice on their in-flight magazine and their English editor (if they have one) didn’t catch this. I have yet to be in any area in London where I have felt unsafe.
