State-owned Air China has been hard at work building their brand image globally, even bringing in a team from WPP to help them shape how the world views the rapidly expanding carrier.

But the branding game plays upon many variables and sometimes the smallest thing quickly turns into the biggest thing –even one sentence in the airline’s inflight magazine Wings of China.

That sentence was in an article offering travel advice for London and it read:

“London is generally a safe place to travel, though precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people.”

Ouch. But, who reads the airline magazines that thoroughly anyway?

Well, some people do, and in this case it was Haze Fan, a CNBC producer. Yep. And she took a photo and tweeted it out and …it went viral.

Air China reacted by putting the blame on the magazine’s editorial team, saying that it should “learn its lesson” while adding that the article in no way represented the views of Air China.

When asked about it at a weekly press conference Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, “Relevant departments will have the necessary talks with Air China, and we believe Air China will investigate about this and properly deal with it.”

The ministry also released a statement on their website.

“The policy of the Chinese government on ethnic groups and races is clear and consistent. We uphold equality among all ethnic groups and oppose all forms of racial discrimination,” she said, according to a transcript posted on the ministry’s website.

The China Daily owned Global Times, however was less than apologetic saying it was simply a misunderstanding and blaming opportunistic British politicians for fanning the flames of racism.

“No politicians would give up this opportunity to show how politically correct and constituent-caring they are,” it wrote in an editorial.

Adding: “But as for these British politicians who are making a fuss over the incident, perhaps they should just make their constituencies safer for both local citizens and travelers, so that travel alerts are no longer necessary.”