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Opinion | Why Cathay Pacific discrimination scandal must herald a bill banning anti-mainland bigotry
- While Cathay management engage in damage control, the incident is forcing Hong Kong to confront its culture of discrimination
- Years of tensions between Hongkongers and mainlanders show that what John Lee refers to as the ‘culture and values of respect, courtesy and inclusiveness’ is just a comforting myth
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I love new beginnings. You get to dump all that emotional baggage, let bygones be bygones and start afresh. And so, amid yet another scandal for Hong Kong’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways, it might be the right time for a change, starting with a new name.
As CEO Ronald Lam Siu-por said in an internal memo, the airline “must reflect humbly, examine our culture deeply and take concrete measures” to recover from the discrimination scandal.
Cathay cabin crew were accused of insulting non-English-speaking mainland Chinese passengers on a recent flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong, an incident which quickly spiralled from a public-relations nightmare to a political crisis.
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It is true that management acted swiftly, issuing plenty of statements and repeated apologies. They summarily dismissed the three offending cabin crew and hit back at Cathay Pacific Airways Flight Attendants’ Union for attributing the bad behaviour to low morale.
However, it’s clear that this isn’t going away. It is just the latest and most explosive turn in the airline’s saga, after pilots were accused of “slow taxiing” to earn more pay.
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It is a long time since Marco Polo wrote his story The Road to Cathay. European and Arab travellers of the day referred to northern China as “Cathay”, but in today’s Hong Kong, that name could stir up trouble. The last thing a name should be reminding people of is a time when China was divided.
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