Richard Branson apologises to woman called 'Chinese pig' on Virgin Atlantic flight

Virgin Atlantic says it is investigating the case of a Chinese passenger who claimed she was verbally abused by a fellow passenger and later a flight attendant while flying from London to Shanghai.

The passenger, Liu Wei, said she was onboard flight VS250 on Mar. 1, when a Caucasian man suddenly stood up, went over to her and yelled: "You f**king Chinese pig! Get the f**k out of here!"

He allegedly continued to repeat the abuse, despite attempts to stop him by other passengers including a British man and his Chinese wife, Liu said.

Shortly after, a flight attendant came to resolve the situation, scolding Liu and threatening to throw her off the plane, she said. After passengers around them came to Liu's defence, the staff member eventually said she would put the man in a different seat because he was suffering from a "mental disorder".

Liu said he was never moved for the remaining hours of the flight. Finally another flight attendant came to speak to her, explaining that the first attendant was the flight supervisor. The second attendant was apparently sent to diffuse anymore disputes, or get Liu off the plane.

It's unclear how they would have managed to eject Liu while in mid-air.

Her account of the incident on Weibo, posted days later went viral. According to China Daily, over 5 million people had read her story in the past two weeks since it was posted.

The ruckus has got the attention from top management, it seems. Virgin CEO Richard Branson, tweeted on Friday morning mentioning the incident. He posted two tweets in succession, one in English and the next in Mandarin.

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This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Chinese posters on Weibo continue to hotly discuss the incident. A user, "Austin", said: "It's too late to apologise. There are plenty of other airlines to choose from if you want to fly to London, you don't have to pick Virgin."

道歉恐怕太迟了。飞往伦敦的航班，有很多选择，不一定选维珍啊。

Another user, Chen Lan Che, said: "Chinese people are unused to racial discrimination, we've looked at foreigners curiously too but it never was a problem. In countries with an overwhelming majority race, you wouldn't encounter (these situations) as much."

中国人基本没见过种族歧视，咱们都把外国人当成稀奇的人来看不觉得有啥奇怪的等级问题，其实如果一个国家里一个民族占绝对优势，往往不存在很严重的种族歧视

Virgin also issued a statement saying its customer service team is in touch with Liu for its investigations.

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