Air China flight uproar after business class mayhem ends with seven-hour police questioning for passengers
- National outrage sparked when high-profile traveller Li Yaling shares details of incident on social media
- Employee on long-term sick leave disrupts flight to Beijing but airline says she is a private traveller
National flag carrier Air China has come under fire after an employee made a scene during a flight and accused three business class passengers of attacking her, leading to them being held and questioned for seven hours last Friday after their arrival in Beijing.
Playwright Li Yaling, who was travelling business class on flight CA4107 from Chengdu uploaded a video and lengthy post detailing the incident to her nearly 1.3 million followers on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform.
Li’s video showed a female passenger, who claimed to be an Air China supervisor, scolding passengers for using their phones while the plane was on the runway at Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, southwest China.
The scolding lasted half an hour, according to Li, even after the passengers stopped using their phones and explained they had been switched to flight mode. Air China permits smartphones in flight mode to be used during its flights.
The woman paced about the cabin as the plane taxied down the runway and continued to make a scene until the flight approached Beijing. She was seen making a call, asking for the police to be notified that the passengers had “attacked” her and “endangered aviation safety” and to come and take them away.