Needle-in-meal find prompts Dragonair to sharpen up
Carrier vows to sharpen up in the wake of a frequent flyer's unsavoury discovery while in the middle of his in-flight pork-and-rice dish
Dragonair beefed up safety checks on in-flight meals after a passenger was left with something unpleasant to chew on: a broken syringe needle.
The airline pledged to improve maintenance, increase the sensitivity of its metal detectors and step up human monitoring of food after frequent flyer Thomas Lui's unsavoury find on a plane to Shanghai in April.
Lui, 41, was tucking into a dish of pork and rice when he found what proved to be a bent, 2.5cm needle tip from a syringe that made his meal impossible to swallow.
"My biggest concern is for the investigation to make sure every single passenger does not encounter my situation," the marketing executive said.
When I spat it out, it was a bent syringe needle. I was totally freaking out
Dragonair - Cathay Pacific's smaller sister airline - said checks with its caterer and mainland pork supplier found the object was in fact part of a needle used to inject water into the meat.