Air China Gets Backlash for Racist Comments in Magazine

China's state-run airline, Air China, is being slammed over racist travel advice featured in their inflight magazine. The magazine, Wings of China, warned Chinese tourists that while London is generally a safe place to travel to, they should avoid areas with Indians, Pakistanis, and black people.

According to ATTN, this was first spotted by Haze Fan, a CNBC producer based in Beijing. She tweeted a picture of the advice and tagged the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Khan is of Pakistani descent and was born in England.

A piece of advice in Air China inflight magazine. What does @MayorofLondon think? @CNBCi @SeamusConwell @cnbcSri pic.twitter.com/u7SGfiyuXA

— Haze Fan (@journohaze) September 6, 2016

The magazine has spouted outrage, with citizens from twitter criticizing the magazine. Several have chided the magazine for the offending advice.

Mirror reports that Virendra Sharma, the Labour MP of Ealing Southall, has demanded a public apology from the Chinese ambassador to the UK for the racist slur.

"I am shocked and appalled that even today some people would see it as acceptable to write such blatantly untrue and racist statements.", says Sharma. "I have invited representatives of Air China to visit my constituency of Ealing Southall to see that a very multi-cultural area is safe, and would be of great value for those visiting London to see."

He has also demanded that the magazine be removed from circulation immediately and that if Air China does not respond appropriately, then he questions its fitness to operate in the UK.

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

The airline has already removed all copies of the magazine and blames the "inappropriate expressions" on sister firm, Air China Media. Air China Media has issued an apology.

However, Straits Times reports that Chinese mainland social media users defended the travel tips, saying that the magazine was "stating the truth" and that there was nothing to apologize about.

This is not the first instance of a Chinese company publishing discriminatory media against dark-skinned minorities. Earlier this year, a Chinese laundry detergent company called Qiaobi also received backlash for a racist ad. The ad featured an Asian woman loading a black man into a washing machine, turning him to an Asian man.