The Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently criticized New Zealand’s food safety laws the same week Air China sickened passengers by serving allegedly expired meals.
At least 30 passengers on an Air China plane headed to Bejing reported having food poisoning after eating a beef-filled biscuit, the Wall Street Journal reported.
One passenger noticed that the expiration date on the package was four days before the flight. By the time she alerted the airline staff, passengers were already experiencing nausea and some scrambled to the bathroom. For others, it was too late.
The Journal reports:
Experiencing discomfort, passengers began to head for the restrooms. Some, including the Zhang family, felt queasy. Others vomited and still others suffered the runs.
The incident occurred during one of China’s busiest travel periods, the weeklong National Day holiday, when millions of Chinese took to domestic and international skies. It also came on the same day that Mr. Xi unleashed guffaws from Chinese social media users after he appeared to scold New Zealand Prime Minister John Key over the island nation’s food-safety issues.
Fans of Leslie Nielsen know that food poisoning at 30,000 feet is neither new nor particularly rare. But in a country with a stubbornly persist food-safety problem – and notoriously unreliable air service — the notion that the national carrier might have knowingly exposed its passengers to expired food has led a spewing of indignation among consumers.