Generalisations

The Herald reports:

Air New Zealand last night apologised for a crew manual which profiled passengers by nationality and suggested flight attendants watch Tongans who wanted to “drink the bar dry”.

The airline said the document, made public yesterday, was written in 2008 for flight crews. It had since been updated and did not now touch on alcohol or “cultural components”.

This is not surprising. Even if Air NZ has observed such drinking with some Tongan passengers, they could have made clear it was only a minority, and/or made it a general warning about all passengers.

Labour Party list MP Carmel Sepuloni, who is of Tongan descent, said the remarks were offensive, and she was considering lodging a complaint.

“I don’t know what Air New Zealand was thinking in putting something like that together,” she said. “They shouldn’t be making any generalisations of any ethnic group.”

I wonder whether that statement is going too far. I agree the Tongan alcohol reference causes offence, but taking another statement:

Staff were told not to be surprised “if you ask a Japanese female a question and a male customer answers on her behalf”.

I would argue that providing staff with this information can be helpful. If a staff member has not been warned, they might react with surprise and say something inappropriate the first time a male answers on behalf of his wife.