[AMcWhirter]

As some readers may now any airline that flies both to mainland China and Taiwan can face problems.

Now it’s the turn of Emirates to discover what carriers like KLM, British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa * etc have known for a long time. [Note: Etihad/Qatar Airways do not serve Taiwan]

It was reported that Emirates issued a staff memo stating that Taiwanese cabin crew working flights to mainland China replace the Taiwanese flag on their flag pin with one of mainland China.

Following complaints by the Taiwanese foreign ministry Emirates is now saying the memo was issued “in error.”

It’s not entirely clear (whether it applies to all nationalities or just Taiwanese) but it now seems that Taiwanese cabin crew working flights to mainland China need no longer wear “a flag pin as part of their uniform.”

Taiwan lodges complaint with Dubai’s Emirates over flag pin e-mail

[AMcWhirter]

There’s a more detailed Reuters report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-emirates-taiwan-idUSKBN18R13Q

[AlanOrton1]

I read this story on the BBC website, and it seems to elude Taiwanese cabin crew have been asked to remove their flag pin from all flights (not just to mainland China).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40103064

It may be that in their desire to grow traffic to and from China, there was a little pressure applied somewhere.
With their US loads most likely under pressure, was the potential business out of China behind this communique?
(Some extra routes for all those spare A380’s parked at DXB?!)

[AMcWhirter]

AlanOrton1 – It looks that way. It look a long time before Emirates launched flights to Taipei … it was many years it had started flying to Beijing and so on. And the other Gulf airlines do not fly to Taipei at all.

KLM remains the only European carrier serving Taipei. It’s flown there from Amsterdam for many years under the KLM Asia name.

When BA used to fly to Taipei it operated via HKG under the name of British Asia Airways with a modified livery featuring Chinese script on the tail. (Note: This was before the days of those ethnic liveries.)

There was also Air France Asie, asia Swissair while Lufthansa used its Condor brand.

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