A Hong-Kong-based airline was forced to apologize for making a 25-year-old Japanese woman take a pregnancy test in order to board a flight to Saipan, a a commonwealth of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean.
The controversial incident reportedly took place in November of 2019, but was only covered in the media last week. Midori Nishida was checking at Hong Kong International Airport, with low-cost carrier Hong Kong Express, in order to fly to the island of Saipan to visit her parents. The Japanese national was not pregnant and said so on a check-in questionnaire, but her body shape apparently made airline staff question her honesty. The 25-year-old woman was asked to give permission to an authorized medical provider to conduct a “fit-to-fly” assessment, which in this case meant a pregnancy test.
