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A clip of a China Southern Airlines ground staff at Changi Airport calling a Chinese passenger a "dog" has been circulated widely online.

China Southern Airlines has issued a statement apologising for the incident in response.

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"If you want to be a dog, I can treat you like a dog": staff

According to Chinese media The Paper, the passenger, identified as Yuan (transliterated from Chinese) approached China Southern Airlines ground staff at Changi Airport on May 23.

The paying customer asked about the extra charge for switching to a seat with larger legroom when he checked in for flight CZ546 from Singapore to Chongqing.

Yuan said several counter staff were communicating in Chinese at that time, but when he asked the staff behind the counter if he could speak Chinese, the staff replied indifferently, saying that he could not understand Chinese and refused to answer Yuan's question.

Taken aback, Yuan thought that he was being discriminated against for wanting to speak Chinese.

He whipped his phone out to film, which was when the counter staff insulted him "in three different languages", calling him "a dog', and "unable to understand human language".

In the recorded video, the counter staff could be heard saying: "If you want to be a dog, I can treat you like a dog".

Yuan then retorted off-camera: "You are the dog. Who's a dog? Say it again clearly".

The ground staff also accused Yuan of "interrupting" when the staff were "explaining" themselves, but Yuan said he was the only passenger at the counter at the time.

Airline issued statement

Following the incident, China Southern Airlines has issued a statement of apology on their WeChat page.

The statement said the company has since launched an investigation into the incident, and have contacted the passenger to issue an apology.

It was also stated that the counter staff was an employee of a local ground agency service provider entrusted by the airline.

The airline admitted that the language used during the dispute was inappropriate, and the airline has since asked the agency service provider to revoke the person's service qualifications.

The statement also thanked the airline's passengers, the media and the public for their attention and scrutiny, and will continue to improve the quality of their customer service, in addition to ensuring the quality of service provided by hired external agencies.

Bad airline service

Another incident calling out bad customer service on airlines also occurred recently.

A passenger took to social media to complain that flight attendants on her Cathay Pacific flight had mocked and discriminated against non-English speaking travellers on May 21.

After the incident, Cathay Pacific fired the three flight attendants involved on May 23.

Photo via WeChat and TikTok