A New Zealander has been convicted of hurling racial slurs at a female cabin crew member and demanding that he be served by a "white girl" on a British Airways flight from London to Rio de Janeiro.

Peter Nelson was angry after being woken up by Sima Patel-Pryke while flying business class on an 11-and-a-half-hour flight from Heathrow to Brazil.

The dad-of-three said: "You Asians think you are better than us, I don't want to be served by you lot, I've paid your wages for the last 20 years."

Cabin crew got a restraining kit ready to use on him, the jury at Isleworth Crown Court in west London was told.

​According to prosecutor Michael Tanney, Nelson "bullied and ranted and shouted".

"At one point, after a sustained targeting of her, she begins to back away in fright and became tearful."

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Citing another cabin crew member Sam Buchanan's evidence, he said: "Nelson subsequently demanded services in the future only from the white member of the crew.

"He accused the defendant of shouting very loudly to add to the menace that he was exuding. All deliberate say the crown. That was when the white girl reference was allegedly made."

Tanney added: "It's no trifling complaint that one has misbehaved on an aeroplane at 3,000ft to the extent that a restraining kit has been made ready."

The trial heard evidence from a linguistics expert about different interpretations of the word "Asian" between New Zealand and the UK. 

The expert said "Asian" normally refers to someone of Chinese appearance in New Zealand, where as the victim was British, of South Asian or Indian descent. 

Prosecutors argued the only thing was relevant was the victim's interpretation of his words.

Defence lawyer Lauren Sales, in her closing submissions to the trial, said: "Mr Nelson accepts he was tired, petulant, churlish. 

"He said, 'He didn't want that one serving him, he wanted another one' - maybe words that you and I might not use to speak to cabin crew, but certainly not racist.

"The prosecution put it to Mr Nelson, 'oh, you were drunk - that's why you acted in this way,' but we know not a single one of the prosecution witnesses said Mr Nelson was slurring. They did say he had the boozy breath.

"It wasn't white one, it was as Mr Nelson explained, he only wanted to be served by 'her'."

Nelson went to university in New Zealand before moving to the UK, where he lived in the well-heeled town of Ascot, and started work at GlaxoSmithKline in 2000. 

The court heard Nelson, 46, has lost his $2900-a-week job as an IT consultant with the pharmaceutical giant and was now considering moving his wife and three children back to New Zealand after 20 years in the UK.

On Friday, Nelson shook his head and sniffed in the dock as a jury delivered a unanimous guilty verdict to one count of racially aggravated abuse on the flight on June 2 last year.

Fining him $3800, with $960 compensation to his victim and $6700 costs to the prosecution, Judge Edward Connell said: "You plainly displayed a contemptuous attitude towards the staff from the outset, when Ms Pryke, simply doing her job, came to wake you in order to take your food order. 

"You took immediate offence at her having the audacity in your view to wake you up.

"It seems that that was the beginnings of what turned out to be on your part an opportunity for you to get very upset without any justification at all.

"That manifested itself in the most unpleasant of ways.

"It was thoroughly unpleasant period of conduct by you; such was your conduct that members of staff were called to deal with you and they had cause to contact the pilot.

"It's quite plan albeit this wasn't the most serious case the court hears, that it had an impact on Ms Pryke who we heard in evidence was upset and ended up in tears because of your behaviour.

"It was completely unacceptable and I'm entirely satisfied that it was contributed by that you had drunk a significant amount of alcohol during the course of that flight.

"I accept this conviction will have profound ramifications for you and your employability so I'm just persuaded that this can be deal with a financial penalty."

Sales, the defence lawyer, said Nelson's wife had suffered from stress due to the allegations and was treated by paramedics in an ambulance at the court after seeing national press reports of the case.

Sales added: "He has lost his job. He was the breadwinner of the family. It is life changing for Mr Nelson, the two of them have taken the decision to take their children out of their school because it's an international school. They feel they cannot go to the gates of the school and stand in the playground.

"The impact of the conviction has had extreme life changing consequences. In terms of (British Airways) they haven't even banned Mr Nelson, they haven't taken any action.

"He has lost his job, his children are coming out of their school, they talked earlier between the two of them of considering moving back to New Zealand because of the ramifications."