Would you spend an afternoon checking in for a flight, going through security screening and passport control, boarding an A330, enjoying food and beverage onboard, but never actually leaving? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, China Airlines and Qantas are offering several fake flights this month.
China Airlines Offers Fake Flights To Those With Wanderlust
7,000 people signed up and only 60 where chosen for the first flight, an Airbus A330 from Taipei…to Taipei. The experience takes places at Songshan airport (TSA). With COVID-19 knocking out most travel, China Airlines and the airport authorities hatched a plan to at least offer a semblance of travel to wanderlust-struck citizens.
For the the chosen, a full flight experience awaited, including:
- Check-in
- Security
- Passport control
- Boarding
- Beverage service
- Meal service
- IFE
The only difference? The aircraft never took off.
Here’s a video and some pictures from the special flight:
An airport in Taiwan offers fake flights for travel-starved tourists https://t.co/kf0Y7wqFNE pic.twitter.com/4ad2QJgXIb
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 3, 2020
China Airlines and Songshan airport plan to offer several more “fake flights” over the course of the month.
Qantas Also Offers Fake Flights
China Airlines is not airline offering fake flights. Earlier today, Qantas also offered a fake flight from Bendigo Airport (BXG) in Victoria.
Passengers waited in a check-in for 15 minutes, dropped off their luggage, received boarding passes, then boarded their 90-minute flight. The onboard experience included a bag of peanuts and an IFE screening of Cast Away, a movie staring Tom Hanks.
Qantas plans to offer for flights from Bendigo this month and may expand its fake flight offerings to more airports, including New York.
CONCLUSION
I’d probably get on a real flight before I “flew” one of these flights to nowhere, but I like the idea. Heck, I still have not had the Pan Am experience in LA…that’s the preeminent fake flight.
Would you take a fake flight on China Airlines or Qantas?
They must have had a delay getting off, that movie is 2 hours 20 minutes long. That would at least provide some semblance of normalcy to the experience.
So, all of the infectious risk of the 2020 airport/airplane experience, a seat less comfortable than the worst one in my house, snacks or a meal I wouldn’t pay money for, an uninteresting airplane and I don’t actually get to go somewhere?
Indeed, a bit strange.
Can highly recommend the Pan Am Experience. An amazing experience. I’m unsure I’d board a fake flight from Bendigo even on Qantas
But do they accrue mileage?
FAKE FLIGHTS ARE TAKING OFF
=/
The aircraft never took off.
Umm .. huh?
It’s a pun. Taking off as in taking off in popularity.
Though not directly related to the subject matter, this CNN article says that Americans who stayed at home despite no statewide stay at home order saved lived. If true, then trying to travel now or needlessly going out does, as a population, kill people. Your specific trip may or may not result in a death but as a population, many people’s trips do kill.
I don’t want to kill or be killed. Not trolling because I feel sad that my elite level status in airlines and hotels will likely be lost because I will not be flying in 2020 and at most one (or no) flights in 2021.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/health/covid-19-staying-home-saved-lives-wellness/index.html
Years ago, here in Australia, now defunct carrier Ansett Australia offered “mystery flights”. At first, they were operated by Ansett subsidiary, Air NSW, later to become Ansett NSW. The idea was that for $50, you checked in for your mystery flight and were only told of the destination at that time. You would board the flight and fly to one of several destinations in rural NSW and then return to Sydney aboard the same aircraft on its return sector. The aircraft that flew the routes were Fokker F-27’s and later Fokker F-28’s. Later, the scheme moved to mainline domestic services and for the slightly higher price of $150, you were booked on a flight to any number of major Australians and returned on a flight at the end of the day – all for $150! There was always a problem at first, with people not being able to dress appropriately for their destination. They would dress for the tropics and hope to wind up in Cairns or Darwin, but instead, ended up in cooler Melbourne or Hobart. But as the scheme grew in popularity, AN revenue staff would try to allocate more exciting destinations and passengers could spend the day snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef or climbing Ayers Rock for the day. Plus, there were plenty of AV geeks, like myself, keen to fly anywhere!
It was good from the airline’s perspective because passengers were only taking up seats that would otherwise fly empty. it filled planes with paying passengers, albeit for as low as $150. But the scheme provided a rather cheap and exciting day out, travelling to destinations for the day that they may not have considered. They got to experience the onboard culture and service of Ansett Australia, which at the time was regarded as one of the world’s best domestic airlines. And it helped fill the coffers of local businesses with passengers that weren’t expected as regular tourists, but who could spend a day spending up big, especially on return flights to Melbourne, generally regarded as a shopping mecca to world travellers.
In the age of COVID, such a scheme would still achieve all of what was achieved during Ansett’s mystery flight days along with the added bonus of keeping aircraft flying instead of stored in a desert somewhere. In the US, with such an exciting array of destinations, I think any carrier that implemented a mystery flight program would reap huge rewards. Imagine living in LA and being able to spend the day shopping in New York for only $150 return airfare, assuming that that was where you were allocated to. And how many people in NYC and the East Coast would relish a day spent in SFO, LAS or MIA.
Food for thought, my US buddies. And you would actually have the added advantage of being aboard a aircraft that actually took off and everyone else aboard assume that you were just a regular passenger, instead of a mystery flight passenger, returning the same day, possibly on the same aircraft after inbound pax had disembarked….