Chinese airline sparks race fury after in-flight magazine tells passengers to beware of ethnic minority areas in London
Writer warns 'precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people'
A TOP Chinese airline has sparked a race row after its in-flight magazine warned travellers to London to dodge the city's 'ethnic minority' areas.
The shocking article in the latest edition of Wings of China - distributed on Air China - has today been branded 'racist', 'outrageous' and 'insulting'.
“London is generally a safe place to travel, however precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people," it reads.
“We advise tourists not to go out alone at night, and females always to be accompanied by another person when travelling.”
The phrase is then repeated in both Mandarin and English in the magazine’s in-depth feature on the multi-cultural capital.
The article was spotted by Chinese journalist Haze Fan on a flight in China.
It enraged her so much she tweeted a picture of it to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan asking him what he thought.
She wrote how her Londoner fiancée “felt it rather insulting”.
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Lambeth and Southwark London assembly member Florence Eshalomi added “you couldn’t make up these outdated and near-on racist views”.
She said: “I keep thinking, is this 2016? We want people who embrace our diversity and different culture - that is the make-up of London.
“If airlines have a problem with that then we don’t want them in London."
A spokesman from civil rights campaign group Hope Not Hate spokesman said: “It beggars belief to understand how they could have been written in the first place.
“They should be removed immediately. Londoners deserve an apology.”
Britain is an increasingly popular destination for Chinese tourists. According to government agency VisitBritain, more than 270,000 Chinese visited Britain in 2015, up 46 percent on the previous year.
This was after the number of Chinese tourists doubled in the five years to 2014.
Chinese visitors spent 586 million pounds ($786 million) in total in Britain in 2015, up 18 percent on 2014.
And in January, Britain launched a new, two-year, multiple-entry visa in a bid to woo even more Chinese visitors to its shores, following changes made in 2015 that allowed tourists and business travellers to apply for both British and European visas in a single process.
Chinese companies have been criticised previously for their depictions of various races.
In May, a Chinese detergent company apologised for an advert that showed an Asian woman shoving a dirt-smeared black man into a washing machine, only for him to emerge as a clean Asian man.
The ad, which ran on Chinese social media platforms, was quickly dubbed "the most racist commercial ever."