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Virgin Atlantic is investigating an allegation that one of its customers was racially abused on a flight from Heathrow to Shanghai this month.
Reports of the incident has caused a social media storm in China with millions of views on social media site Weibo and a deluge of posts on Virgin’s Facebook page.
China Daily reported that Virigin has said that it won’t comment in detail about the incident until it has resolved it with the customer directly.
However in a statement the carrier said: “We are aware of an issue on a recent flight and would like to reassure the customer that we are taking her claims seriously and are fully investigating the circumstances.
“The safety and wellbeing of our passengers is always our priority, and we will continue to speak directly with the customer to ensure the situation is resolved.”
Virgin was also reported as saying: “we are aware of the concern around the alleged incident on flight VS250. We are a multinational company with zero tolerance of racism.”
According to China Daily, social media reports of the incident allege that a Chinese female passenger was abused by another passenger on flight VS250 on March 1 and was then ignored by a member of the crew.