Photo/Cathay Pacific 

John Lee Ka-chiu, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, on Wednesday, expressed regret over the encounter of some mainland passengers as non-English speaking speakers on a Cathay Pacific flight, who were treated unequally by some crew members on May 21.

Lee said that the incident hurt the Hong Kong-mainland relations and damaged Hong Kong’s culture and long hold values of respect and courtesy. Lee asked Cathay Pacific CEO Lin Shaobo to take the incident seriously and ensure that such situations would not happen again.

On the evening of May 23, Cathay Pacific issued a statement on its official Weibo account, saying that it had completed an investigation into the incident and had dismissed three crew members involved.

Lin Shaobo said that he would personally lead a cross-departmental working group to conduct a comprehensive review, re-examine its service processes, personnel training and related systems, and further improve Cathay Pacific’s service quality. He said that the most important thing was to ensure that all Cathay Pacific employees must respect passengers from different backgrounds and cultures, and provide professional and consistent services.

On Wednesday, Lin also apologized for the incident in Chinese.