Following the sharing on social media of a clip of flight attendants making fun of a passenger who couldn’t speak English, Cathay Pacific has apologized.
The event happened on aircraft CX 987 on May 21, 2023, from Chengdu Tianfu International Airport (CTU) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG).
The word “blanket” was mistaken for “carpet” when a passenger asked the flight attendants for a blanket due to his weak English proficiency. The chat was audio-recorded and posted on Red, one of China’s most popular social media applications, by a fellow passenger who claims to have observed the incident.
The recording is currently available on Tiktok. After clearly pronouncing the word “carpet,” another voice can be heard adding, “The carpet is on the floor.” Another voice was then heard saying, “If you cannot say blanket, you cannot have it.” Then there was group laughter.A statement concerning the incident was released by Cathay Pacific and made public by the Chinese media outlet Global Times. We sincerely regret once more for the passenger’s experience on flight CX987 on Sunday, which received a lot of media attention. Within three days, we will make public the findings of an internal investigation we performed, the carrier added.
On China’s Twitter-like social networking site Sina Weibo, where more netizens recounted similar experiences of being discriminated against by Cathay Pacific cabin crew, the audio tape gained more than 70 million views and comments, according to Global Times.
