Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific bans couple over reclining seat argument

HONG KONG — Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways has banned a couple seen in a viral video harassing a mainland Chinese woman who refused to put up her reclined seat.

An altercation occurred during a flight from Hong Kong to London on Sept. 17. The female passenger — who has not been identified but uses the online name Jin Yuelin — posted a video on Xiaohongshu, China's Instagram-like platform, that shows part of the confrontation with the unidentified couple.

NBC News has asked the passenger and the airline for comment.

"The lady behind me asked if I could put my seat upright because it was obstructing her husband's view of the TV," the woman recalled, noting in the caption that the plane was flying smoothly at the time. "After I politely refused, she started stretching her feet onto the armrest, kicking my arm and angrily cursing at me."

After realizing the video poster didn't speak fluent Cantonese — the language of Hong Kong — the couple began to use "very discriminatory" language toward her, including calling her a "mainland girl," she said. Most people in mainland China speak Mandarin Chinese.

Later, the passenger said she was "shocked" when the flight attendant walked over at her request but asked her to adjust the seat. "It wasn't time for meal service at all but I was asked to make the compromise," she said.

The couple then started to kick the back of her seat, the passenger said in her post. She said she requested to switch seats but that this was declined by the flight attendant. “Since we are fully booked today, we couldn’t find another seat for you,” the crew member is heard saying in the video.

"The mainland will prevail. Mainlanders are the most powerful. Mainland girls can sell smiles," the woman is heard telling the passenger in Cantonese after pointing a middle finger at her.

The husband put both of his arms on her seat and shook it "wildly," which made the passenger feel that her personal space was "seriously violated," the caption read.

Surrounding passengers stood up for her, criticizing the couple's disruptive behavior.

"What the hell are you doing?" one person asked in Cantonese, which was captured in the video.

"You're embarrassing us Hong Kong people," another said.

The passenger was then offered a new seat. "When things escalated to this point, suddenly there was a seat available for me?" she said through a machine-generated voice. "It feels completely absurd. What if no one had spoken up for me? Was I supposed to just keep tolerating it? As such a large airline, does Cathay Pacific really not know how to handle such disputes?"

The nearly three-minute video received over 195,000 likes as of Tuesday, sparking heated discussions on Chinese social media.

Cathay Pacific said in a statement on Xiaohongshu on Saturday that the company "sincerely" apologizes for the incident. "We maintain a zero-tolerance policy towards any behavior that violates safety regulations or disrespects other passengers' rights," it said.

Since the economy cabin was fully booked, the crew arranged a seat in premium economy for the passenger, and the cabin service manager gave the couple two "severe" verbal warnings, the statement said. "The two individuals involved will be banned from all future flights operated by the Cathay Pacific Group," it said.

The woman posted a follow-up video Monday. "I also received many DMs, all offering comfort and encouragement, with some even giving me advice on how to better protect myself," she said. "I was really touched, and it made me feel very warm and happy."

She also said the incident was an "isolated case and purely a personal issue" of those two passengers. "There's no need to overgeneralize it. Whether on the plane or online, I had many friends from Hong Kong who came forward to help and support me," she added.

Hong Kong was returned to China after Britain handed it over in 1997. In recent years, Chinese influence has been growing in the global financial hub, with the Beijing-imposed National Security Law and an influx of mainland Chinese professionals.

Peter Guo

Peter Guo is a fellow on NBC’s Asia Desk, based in Hong Kong.