CNN producer at centre of Weibo scuffle over China Eastern Airlines mystery VIP smoke
 

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/artic...es-mystery-vip

“Would China Eastern Airlines tell me, who was the man allowed to break airline safety laws so blatantly? On the evening of December 2, after the MU5127 flight took off, the male passenger at 1A/B of the first class section was smoking at his seat. The crew did nothing.

"After a passenger from the first class section took a photo of the smoker, an air marshal tried unsuccessfully to grab his/her phone and delete the photo. After the plane landed, several big guys boarded the plane. They surrounded and threatened the photographer, and forced him/her to delete the photo. The passenger was allowed to leave the plane only after the photo was deleted."

Per http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...elsewhere.html will move this to the appropriate airline forum while leaving a 30-day re-direct in Travel News

cblaisd
Moderator, Travel News

I think the China forum would be a better home for this thread because it's more about official heavy handedness than it is about MU (unless the smoker was an MU exec... highly doubtful... I'm thinking far more powerful than that).

We all know that most Chinese airlines sell their Business Class cabin as First Class so we just can't tell if by calling it First Class the CNN reporter was lying, or vice versa.

Since "we all know that" where does "lying" come into play? (I call it first class too, and so does ctrip.)

A man is entitled to enjoy a smoke every once in a while....he probably just needed to relax after "hanging out" with a couple KTV girls before the flight. Cut him a break.

It's fake. Passangers from MU 5172 proved no such thing happened.

So who do you guys believe?

Sources, please.

This CNN guy has posted last night on Weibo that 1) while he was using his personal Weibo account he didn't think he was representing CNN so he will be more vigilant next time, 2) he was not on that flight and the person who took photos and asked to have them deleted would not come forward due to the scale of the matter, and 3) he got the flight number wrong and he has been contacted by MU and he has forwarded the correct flight number.

Now this guy has totally lost his creditbility. If anything this should call for CNN to investigate their own employee. What a joke.

I believe the entire story, for what it's worth. This is just the way things go down in the People's Republic.

He probably did all that at the threat of detention and severe beatings.

Your posts seem bizarrely defensive.

Typical of China.

Guy was probably some local big shot or airline boss who can do what he pleases. Especially if airline staff tried to stop guy from taking photo and that personnel came to delete the photo.

It's an international incident best dealt with within the Great Wall.

But unless international attention is drawn, nothing will be done.

If it were just one guy (probably a Party official) smoking, that's minor, but Chinese airlines: (1) are generally late, (2) allow passengers to stand up and get their carryon even as the plane is landing and taxiing, (3) allow passengers to push each other out of the way when boarding and deplaning, (4) allow use of mobile phones (loudly) during takeoff and flight, (5) seemingly disregard seating assignments, (6) allow pushing and shoving at the gate, etc. Yes, I did see smoking on one of my flights, but it was rare.

I live in China for a number of years and had a LOT of domestic travel. I really wish the high-speed rail was available for my travel (company policy said air only).

Ha ha! The worrying thing is that nobody is really shocked or in disbelief :-)

After all smoking is not as scary as this:

http://www.scmp.com/article/584313/g...s-worry-pilots