Air China blemme i Inflight magazine - Curt Lewis

Air China Apologizes for 'Inappropriate' Tourism Advice

Air China said it was sorry for the negative impact on passengers and the airlin and has removed all of its in-flight magazines. 

One of China's state-run airlines has gone into damage control after a diplomatic stir erupted around an article in its in-flight magazine warning travelers to avoid certain minority neighborhoods in London.

Photos of the passage, shared on social media, show a paragraph on safety which told readers that precautions were needed when "entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people. We advise tourists not to go out alone at night, and females always to be accompanied by another person when traveling."

Air China in a statement Thursday said the airline had removed all of its in-flight magazines. Blaming an "editorial mistake" by the company that publishes the magazines, it apologized for "inappropriate" remarks and said it was sorry for the negative impact on passengers and the airline.

After reports in the British media about the article, a British Labour Party member of parliament, Virendra Sharma, said he asked the Chinese ambassador to the U.K. for an apology. On his blog, Mr. Sharma said he wrote to the ambassador, saying "I am shocked and appalled that even today some people would see it as acceptable to write such blatantly untrue and racist statements."

Asked in a regular news briefing whether the Chinese ambassador had gotten involved in the situation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the ministry had noted the situation but she didn't have further information. She said the Chinese government opposes racial discrimination in any form.

"We believe that relevant Chinese departments would urge Air China to conduct necessary investigation and address this issue properly," she said.

London is one of the most diverse cities in the world, with "white British" accounting for less than 50% of its population, according to U.K. census data.

As the photo of the passage circulated on social media, comments of outrage poured in, including from Kunal Nayyar, a British-Indian actor on American sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," who wrote to the more than one million followers of his verified Twitter account: "Really? Yeah eat poop Air China."

One user of China's social-media platform Weibo, with a handle that translates as "noodle lover," thought the anger aimed at Air China was somewhat unfair: "Air China is just trying to warn passengers from some dangerous regions. However, once translated into English, it seems not politically correct."

Chinese depictions of black people in marketing or corporate materials have several times been the subject of controversy.

The London warning from Air China comes on the heels of a debate in May over a Chinese laundry-detergent ad that showed a black man being transformed into an Asian after he was tossed in the washer with the company's soap.

And still sold in China is the Darlie-brand toothpaste, in Chinese called 黑人牙膏, or Black People Toothpaste. It was originally marketed as Darkie toothpaste and until a 1990 branding overhaul showed a smiling black man in a top hat.

Air China is no stranger to blanket judgments about foreign locales-often laudatory. Another in-flight magazine article, entitled "Every Swede Wants a Log Cabin" and published earlier this summer, noted that previously, "Sweden was considered as a country of farmers and pirates. Now, Sweden is one of the world's happiest countries."