Air China warns against Blacks, Indians, Pakistanis in London
Oh dear.
Air China may be about to commit PR suicide. As Londoner of ethnic minority myself, this one went rather too far.
My story on my own experience reading Air China tips on safety in #London @MayorofLondon @markboleat https://t.co/CeXcROfabc
— Haze Fan (@journohaze) September 7, 2016
That's right, in 2016 Air China is “precautioning” travellers in its in-flight magazine to watch out for “areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people” when roaming London. My guess is you will not get very far as there are large settlements of the aforementioned, and many other nationalities, in pretty much every Borough of London.
Air China did later issue an apology, stating that the original advice had been mis-interpreted. Yeah…right.
(H/T @journohaze)
Actually, Ben Schlappig and Justin Ross Lee had the smoking incident with China Eastern, not Air China.
That’s a very daft oversight from me! Edited, with thanks. I’ll try to do better with fact checking next time
Hmmmm? Let me see. China Air has to put out a warning, which seems to me very justified considering recent recurring events involving these people, rather than the Chinese equivalent of our State Department who wud normally put out such a warning. So now the Airlines is taking the hit? If I’m a traveler I’m thanking them and scheduling my next flt with them. Bad marketing? Maybe, then again maybe not. Regardless, I think the warning is warranted and shud be welcomed rather than criticized.
Been there, many times. Spot on observation.
Perhaps the facts are that those areas have more reorted crime. Nobody is stating that any particular group commits more crimes, just that things seem to be reported in those areas at a higher frequency.
I’ve been to areas of London with relatively high concentrations of persons of South Asian, SW Asian and various African heritages and found them to be no more problematic for me than the stuff I encounter in US cities that attract a lot of international tourists. If anything, they tend to be safer than large US cities.
Isn’t it still the case that West African Brits are a demographic group that has one of the highest attainment levels of graduate degrees in all of the U.K.?
This Chinese airlines’ racist warning is sort of ironic, given China’s relative safety wouldn’t be what it is without the authoritarian Communist Party rule.
Time to throw away political correctness, I have lived in a major US inner city area for over 7 years, my experience tells me that Air China said was true, not the way some readers like to hear, but it’s easier to avoid those areas than getting mugged in day light.