Air China staffer says she was sacked for refusing to smuggle cigarettes
Aimee Wang was proud to work for Air China. “They are the national carrier. I was born in Beijing, so it was my dream job to work for Air China,” she explains. “I would not have done anything to humiliate my country and Air China. I was loyal to the company.” The airline did not return that loyalty: when she refused to join a cigarette smuggling ring among senior airline staff at Auckland Airport, Wang claims she was bullied, harassed and even assaulted by a colleague. Air China’s head office also sent out a note to staff wrongly accusing her of being the smuggler. She won a defamation action against the Chinese parent company in a Beijing court, but shortly afterwards was dismissed. Air China says the assault did not happen, she wasn’t harassed or bullied, and instead Wang was dismissed after a thorough process, including an independent investigation, which upheld some claims of poor performance. The airline has refused to reinstate her or pay compensation. Wang has launched an Employment Relations Authority case, and her advocate, May Moncur, says it is “an abuse of power wildly beyond a mere breach of good faith obligations”. On 11 April 2019, 44-year-old Air China engineer Hui Zhao walked across the tarmac to meet one of his airline’s planes which had just landed at Auckland airport. As he returned to the company’s office on the mezzanine floor at the international terminal, he was intercepted by Customs officers. They found 1,300 Chinese cigarettes in his backpack. Operation Waxeye had their man - Zhao was considered the centre of a scam in which Air China staff sneaked cigarettes into the country using their airport access cards to evade Customs checks. Zhao’s six cartons and five packets were worth $1,445 in unpaid Customs duty, and a search warrant executed a week later at Air China’s airport office found 520 Marlboro-branded heat sticks in his desk, and 220 Lucky Strike-branded Chinese cigarettes in a locker marked with the initials ‘ZH’; that represented another $499 of tax avoided. Lengthy story has full details.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-03-14/star/air-china-staffer-says-she-was-sacked-for-refusing-to-smuggle-cigarettes
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Air China staffer says she was sacked for refusing to smuggle cigarettes
Aimee Wang was proud to work for Air China. “They are the national carrier. I was born in Beijing, so it was my dream job to work for Air China,” she explains. “I would not have done anything to humiliate my country and Air China. I was loyal to the company.” The airline did not return that loyalty: when she refused to join a cigarette smuggling ring among senior airline staff at Auckland Airport, Wang claims she was bullied, harassed and even assaulted by a colleague. Air China’s head office also sent out a note to staff wrongly accusing her of being the smuggler. She won a defamation action against the Chinese parent company in a Beijing court, but shortly afterwards was dismissed. Air China says the assault did not happen, she wasn’t harassed or bullied, and instead Wang was dismissed after a thorough process, including an independent investigation, which upheld some claims of poor performance. The airline has refused to reinstate her or pay compensation. Wang has launched an Employment Relations Authority case, and her advocate, May Moncur, says it is “an abuse of power wildly beyond a mere breach of good faith obligations”. On 11 April 2019, 44-year-old Air China engineer Hui Zhao walked across the tarmac to meet one of his airline’s planes which had just landed at Auckland airport. As he returned to the company’s office on the mezzanine floor at the international terminal, he was intercepted by Customs officers. They found 1,300 Chinese cigarettes in his backpack. Operation Waxeye had their man - Zhao was considered the centre of a scam in which Air China staff sneaked cigarettes into the country using their airport access cards to evade Customs checks. Zhao’s six cartons and five packets were worth $1,445 in unpaid Customs duty, and a search warrant executed a week later at Air China’s airport office found 520 Marlboro-branded heat sticks in his desk, and 220 Lucky Strike-branded Chinese cigarettes in a locker marked with the initials ‘ZH’; that represented another $499 of tax avoided. Lengthy story has full details.<br/>
