Harsh language lesson for Cathay

It may not be a major storm, but a complaint on mainland social media Xiaohongshu of how several flight attendants joked about "carpet" versus "blanket" could be sensational enough to evolve into a public relations disaster for Hong Kong's flagship carrier Cathay Pacific.

The incident allegedly occurred on Sunday aboard a flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong, in which a passenger - said to be non-English speaking - wanted a blanket but, nevertheless, mistakenly said "carpet" in English.

It is not uncommon for us to make mistakes day in, day out when speaking a foreign language and it is plain wrong to tease someone because of this.

It surprised me that the conversation that took place between the passenger and attendants on that particular flight was conducted in English as Cathay attendants are supposed to be able to speak Cantonese and Putonghua in addition to English.

I had the opportunity of flying Cathay recently and the passengers were a mix of nationalities.

The flight attendants were polite and the lady responsible for my area showed sufficient attention to the languages passengers spoke even in economy class - the cheapest of the flight. I conversed with her in Cantonese.

Although the design of the seat could have been improved, it was a nice experience overall.

Make no mistake, I am not speaking for the airline but about my personal experience only.

It seems to me that the incident on the Chengdu-Hong Kong flight was an isolated one, not common on Cathay's flights.

Nonetheless, it is true that such incidents as reportedly happened on flight CX987 are the last issues that any management would like to encounter.

After Covid, airlines have had enough of challenges to deal with, from recruiting enough staff in order to launch more flights to struggling to make a turnaround in the balance books.

Cathay may be recovering quickly from the pandemic but there is still a long way to go before it can return to pre-pandemic levels.

The reported incident, though relatively minor, cannot be taken lightly as it could easily blow up to become a full public relations crisis.

The mainland is an important market for Cathay and it is imaginable that, unless the incident is contained and addressed quickly and properly, mainland netizens could be easily influenced by new social media posts to, say, stage a boycott of the airline.

So far, Cathay has responded to the PR challenge by making repeated apologies and suspending several cabin crew members from flying duties.

How will the incident draw to a close? It will be difficult to predict how an imminent crisis may develop. If something was predictable, it would not be a crisis.

The best crisis management is to prevent a crisis from occurring in the first place.

I have no doubt that Cathay will tighten its handbooks for its flight staff in light of the present lesson that is being learnt the hard way.