Airline makes female passenger take pregnancy test ahead of flight
A Hong Kong airline has apologised after it demanded a passenger take a pregnancy test before allowing her to board a flight to the US Pacific island of Saipan.
25-year-old Japanese citizen Midori Nishida was checking in for a flight at Hong Kong International Airport when a staff from the low-cost airline Hong Kong Express asked her to take a pregnancy test as part of a “fit-to-fly” assessment.
Despite having marked on a check-in questionnaire that she wasn’t pregnant, the staff escorted Nishida to a washroom and handed her a pregnancy test, barring her from boarding until the test came back negative.
Nishida told the Wall Street Journal that the experience was “very humiliating and frustrating”.
The airline indicated in the permission form that the test was required for women who are “observed to have a body size or shape resembling a pregnant woman”.
It was reportedly part of Hong Kong Express’s response to immigration concerns in Saipan. The island, the largest of the US commonwealth Northern Mariana Islands, is a popular destination for birth tourism, allowing foreign nationals to ensure their babies become American citizens.
There is no federal law banning pregnant foreign citizens to enter the country or give birth on US soil.
“We would like to apologise unreservedly to anyone who has been affected by this,” the airline said in a statement.
“In response to concerns raised by authorities in Saipan, we took actions on flights to Saipan from February 2019 to help ensure US immigration laws were not being undermined.
“Under our new management, we recognise the significant concerns this practice has caused. We have immediately suspended the practice while we review it.”