Union says flight attendants can ask passengers to delete photos and videos taken without consent

The flight attendants union of Cathay Pacific said they were heartbroken to see untrue allegations and online rumors target frontline crew members and referred to guidelines that flight attendants can request photos or videos of them to be deleted if passengers record them without consent. 

The remarks came in an internal email sent to members by the union on Wednesday after the airlines fired three flight attendants on Tuesday night for allegedly discriminating and laughing at mainland passengers on the flight for requesting a “carpet” instead of a “blanket.” 

The union said according to the Inflight Service Delivery Manual, if flight attendants are taken pictures of or filmed by passengers without consent, they can ask passengers to delete those articles. If passengers refuse to do so, flight attendants can then inform the captain and the inflight service manager. 

The union also referred to company policies that it will adopt a “zero-tolerance” approach towards passengers who refuse to abide by the rules – the same approach the company said it adopted towards employees seriously breaching policies and code of conduct. 

Company policies also stated that it would take all actions possible to ensure staffers can receive full support when handling relevant incidents, the union pointed out. 

The union added they expected Cathay would support staffers to protect themselves and provide relevant instructions, and it was a shame that they had only bad news in the end. 

The union noted they understand flight attendants are now frustrated but believe workers will continue to deliver professional services in the face of labor shortage and an exhausting shift roster. 

The union believed flight attendants would, as usual, treat passengers and colleagues from different cultures equally. 

Meanwhile, a netizen suspected to be one of the involved flight attendants published a post on mainland social media xiaohongshu on Tuesday night, starting with “greetings” towards the passenger’s whole family. 

The netizen blasted the passenger for not expressing herself clearly and challenging one of the flight attendants, who is not a Hongkonger and whose native tongue is not even English, for not speaking Putonghua. 

The netizen continued that there are differences between a flight attendant and an airport worker and slammed the “shameless” passenger for secretly taping the flight attendants. 

The post was later deleted, and the user account has been deactivated already. 

Separately, a netizen published another post on xiaohongshu on Wednesday morning that flight attendants had been reaching out to every passenger to see if they needed a blanket on a flight flying from Hong Kong Chengdu. 

Another netizen added Cathay flights have been making public announcements in three spoken languages since Tuesday, including Cantonese, English and Putonghua. 

Also read: Cathay fires three cabin crew over mocking of non-English speakers