A video of AirAsia's online town hall meeting has been widely circulated online in which the airline's Thailand CEO Tassapon Bijleveld used an expletive on a female employee and told her to "shut up".

Bijleveld, who has also been accused of being drunk while attending the meeting, was seen cutting off the female employee multiple times while she was talking about AirAsia’s acquisition of Gojek Thailand and its impact on Teleport, the airline's delivery venture.

The employee's LinkedIn profile stated that she is a senior manager at Teleport, as per Malay Mail.

What Thailand CEO said

Bijleveld first interrupted with, "What's your f**king question? Come on."

The female employee appeared taken aback by his remark.

He then cut her off again, saying, "What's your question? Come on. Don't talk a lot, too much to talk."

And when the employee spoke in Thai, Bijleveld told her to "shut up", before directing queries to AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes, who was also present in the virtual town hall.

It was not clear whether the employee even intended to ask a question in the first place or was making a remark.

Video caught fire on social media

After the video made it online, many called out Bijleveld for his unprofessional conduct.

https://twitter.com/Nicholas_Gomez/status/1419205303036375043

Another issue that was highlighted by the public was that the high-level executives did not step in to confront Bijleveld, and instead were shown smiling in the video.

Besides Fernandes, president of AirAsia digital Aireen Omar, and head of e-commerce Lim Ben Jie were also present virtually, and were seen smiling after Bijleveld made the rude remarks.

The meeting was reportedly attended by some 500 people, according to online reports.

Anger at Fernandes's "deliver a Thai woman" remark

Public displeasure also extended to other parts of the meeting and at Fernandes.

In response to the employee's question on AirAsia's delivery service, Fernandes gave an example by saying, "If we deliver a Thai woman to Ben Jie, and business is good, then we have many more deliveries", as per Marketing Interactive.

This sparked angry responses, with a Twitter user calling it a "demeaning sexualised archetype of Thai women".

It’s so comforting to know that the demeaning sexualised archetype of Thai women whose only purpose is to serve (esp for men) is alive and well still.
Even more startling to hear it vocalised by a CEO in a townhall with Thai women present with no one objecting. How flattering. https://t.co/b5u5AX3nWk

— TNurul Sofia (@tnsofia93) July 27, 2021

AirAsia and Bijleveld apologised for the incident

After the incident went viral, Fernandes apologised for Bijleveld's behaviour, and said he had reached out to the female employee immediately after the meeting "to apologise and reassure her", as per The Vibes.

“This is not the culture we want in AirAsia. What he did was wrong and he apologised,” Fernandes also said.

He added that he tried to "defuse the situation" with a humorous remark and had told Bijleveld to leave the meeting.

Fernandes further said he did not believe Bijleveld's response was sexist behaviour targeted at a female employee.

He said: “Of course the language used was not right but I know Tassapon. He would say the same thing to a male staffer.”

Bijleveld reportedly released an apology video via an "internal correspondence" two weeks after the incident, and "promised it would not happen again", as per Rakyat Post.

Top image via Lowyat.Net/Twitter & Asia Aviation's website