TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A botched photo by the BBC showing Taiwan's national airline instead of a Chinese carrier, which appeared on Friday (Dec. 11), is intensifying calls by the Taiwanese public to accelerate the airline's name change process.
On Friday, the BBC posted an update in its Live Reporting section that announced new guidance by the Civil Aviation Administration of China calling on cabin crews to wear diapers so as to avoid using the toilet, thereby diminishing the risk of the Wuhan coronavirus spread on flights to high-risk destinations. However, the top photo originally displayed in the article showed an aircraft belonging to China Airlines, Taiwan's national carrier.
In an apparent acknowledgment of the blunder, the BBC later removed the photo of the CAL jet. In another article posted the next day on the same subject, it used a photo of a China Eastern Airlines aircraft. The BBC has yet to provide an official explanation as to why it had used a photo of a Taiwanese airline for a story about Chinese air carriers.
Many Taiwanese netizens were sympathetic toward the BBC for having been easily confused by the Taiwanese airline's deceptive name:
"I'm not surprised at all that they made this mistake."
"China Airlines is China Airlines, don't blame others for using the wrong photo."
"If we don't change the name, we can only say that we deserve it."
"I randomly asked a few Western employees who I met at the airport: 'Do you know that China Airlines is not a Chinese airline but rather a Taiwanese airline?' Three out of three said they didn't know."
(BBC screenshot)
