Among the many bombshells in Prince Harry’s recently-released autobiography is an odd claim that Meghan Markle booked his father-in-law a first class ticket on Air New Zealand from Mexico to London, when Air New Zealand neither offers a first class product nor flies to Mexico.
Prince Harry Makes Odd Claim About First Class Flight From Mexico On Air New Zealand
In one passage of his autobiography Spare, the Duke of Sussex writes about how he and his wife Meghan urged her father, Thomas Markle, to flee Mexico:
“We told him, leave Mexico right now: A whole new level of harassment is about to rain down on you, so come to Britain. Now. Air New Zealand, first class, booked and paid for by Meg.”
Critics pointed to two issues with this claim. First, Air New Zealand does not and has never served Mexico. Second, Air New Zealand does not offer a first class product.
Indeed, an Air New Zealand spokesperson told the New Zealand Herald:
“We’ve never had flights between Mexico and the UK. And we only have Business Premier.”
There is no excuse for the lack of attention to detail by Harry’s ghostwriter, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here (and only here, not in the many other private family matters he foolishly discussed in the book). My guess is that the Duke of Sussex really meant to say that Thomas Markle was offered a flight via Los Angeles to London on Air New Zealand. At the time (2018), Air New Zealand was still flying this Fifth Freedom route (you can read my review of it in business class here).
Thomas Markle lived in Rosarito, Baja California. That meant his closest major airport with service to London was Los Angeles. I would chalk up the “first class” claim to a terminology issue many less frequent travelers make in conflating business class and first class. Air New Zealand does not offer a “first class” cabin in the sense of a cabin higher than business class, but offers a “Business Premier” product that it characterizes (delusional, I must add) as a hybrid between business and first class. I also know many people who refer to business and first class interchangeably.
Thus, Harry’s words make more sense.
That’s sloppiness, but not lying. Critics, however, have contended that this error in the book calls everything else in the book into question. That’s not an inherently unreasonable statement, but probably best to use other questionable passages to probe Harry’s veracity than this one. I also think the New Zealand Herald deserves criticism for its superficial handling of Harry’s words. A little digging would have produced a logical answer.
CONCLUSION
Harry claimed Meghan wanted to fly her father from Mexico to London in first class on Air New Zealand when the airline has neither a first class cabin nor serves Mexico. As odd as that claim seems, it makes much more sense when you consider Thomas Markle’s location in Mexico and how so many people use first and business class synonymously. I don’t smell a lie here…just a bit of sloppiness.
“Veracity for truth”? You don’t need “for truth”. Sorry for being pedantic but sloppiness cuts both ways.
But I wasn’t paid $20 million to write this post.
Air NZ also doesn’t fly to London!
But did for many years from HKG-LHR and even longer from LAX-LHR.
If that’s the worst factual issue in the book, I think Harry did okay.
What if it’s the most minor of the errors in the book? Then the book would be rubbish.
The truth might be that Harry has mental problems, Meghan is a bad person, and some members of the Royal Family and the Palace bureaucracy are bad, too.
I must agree. I am a retired AF employee, after 25 years of service. Another example would be the confusion of the terms “direct” and “nonstop.” I hear even industry personnel interchanging the two terms and there is a major difference between the two.
I agree with you here.
I’m reading the book now and am almost finished (it’s surprisingly “not bad”).
When I read the part about their trying to get Thomas Markle to London for the wedding, and while the wording was odd, I realised that they meant he was going to leave internationally from LAX, not “Mexico”. As far as “First Class” not being available on NZ, most people, if they see a two-section international flight, think the forward cabin is First, when it is Business Class.
I read a lot of nonfiction and look for factual errors, but haven’t found any in this book. Of course, there may be some I didn’t recognise.
How do you know Meg didn’t charter this flight on Air New Zealand for her father? This is family we’re talking about, and money is no object for Meg.
One can be assured that the text of “Spare” was throughly cleansed by multiple parties as well as attorneys asking many questions. I am not a for or against the monarchy nor Bonnie Prince Harry I am however tired of all the hysteria going on we as a people have far more important things to think about other than a spoiled brat fighting with the hand that fed him.
20M for the book and 20M before your blog post appears with a counter factual.
Being an heir to William the Conquerer is no great achievement.
Or a great great great great great great Grandfather of Henry VI…or something like that. 😉
What difference betwixt William the Conqueror and the House of Lancaster for your readers: none. Nor the Plantagenets, Normans, et cetera..
I think there are far more alarming issues raised by the Ginger One/ his handsomely paid Pulitzer Prize winning ghost writer than the type of seat booked/not booked with Air New Zealand/not Air New Zealand from Mexico/not Mexico,……and as for a topic for this page, it must have been a quiet news day so a bit of barrel scraping was the order of the day…….
On the contrary, readers love anything and everything about the British Royal Family.
I find Harry and his constantly complaining wife insufferable.
What airline seat they may or may not have booked is the least of their self-inflicted problems.
Beyond tired of hearing about them.
I think you’ll find for every “fascinated” royal follower, there is an equal or greater number who aren’t interested, especially in what the Ginger One and his controlling partner have to say,
As I stated, barrel scraping.
That kind of detail in the book actually strengthens the credibility. It’s incredibly specific, and other than the avgeek first vs business nomenclature nonsense, it’s exactly how Meg might prefer to fly from LA to London, and when in Baja with Socal family coming via LA is par for the coursel.
Harry and M make entirely too much $$$$$$$$$$ for doing nothing!!!
Hard to criticise someone for referring to a product with a lie flat bed as “first class” when several US airlines refer to their product-that-doesn’t-suck-as-much-as-cattle-class with a marginally bigger seat as “first class” (sic).
/snark
Confuse business class and first class?
As an infrequent flyer, seriously I can count my flying experience as 1 one way return LHR-DFW one way on the same route, one return DFW to Honduras, 2 return DFW-SOMEWHERE IN NY, one return love field-to somewhere in Florida (close to Alabama) and I know the difference between first-business_coach…….royalty-almost royalty-cattle.
There is no way I would confuse any of the three coasses
My cut on this is Harry was a total fool to marry Nutmeg (her short marriage to first husband and estrangement from her father would be hints). The airline trip misquote is minor – though for $20M would expect better. We will never hear the other side of the “the palace did not like Megan as she was so popular – thus we were victims” story – there are always 2 sides. The coronation in May will be interesting, my assumption is Harry and Nutmeg will be “invited”, yet told not to attend !.
Another aviation side to the spare book is I understand Harry was miffed that other royals flew up to Scotland to see the Queen before she died – but without him. Yet was not he in Germany at the time ?, at the wounded soldier games….. a possible story for Matthew.
As annoying as the editing in movies and tv shows (including The Amazing Race) where we’ve witnessed a scene on a wide bodied plane, then cutaway to stock footage of a narrow body plane! But this book incident is explainable as you have. Ordinary fliers still call front cabin business as first class, particularly in the US where domestic two-cabin front cabin is sold as first class (though in points terms books as business).
Please stop Harrasding Meg and Harry. Get a damn life. If this is all you learned from the book. Pitty you.
Um, you miss the point.
Does anyone actually care about this Harry nonsense? It’s ridiculous.
There’s more important things in life that a rich ginger boy who misses his mommy….
They should focus more on finding ways to make peace with both his & her families and helping the underdeveloped!
Hi Matthew,
If you’re aiming for actual factual correctness, please amend your statement:
“Thomas Markle lived in Rosarito, Baja California. That meant his closest major airport with service to London was Los Angeles.”
That’s not true. San Diego has daily service to LHR from British Airways. During the peak summer months SAN is served by a 777 and the rest of the year it’s a A350-1000. Back in the day SAN flew a daily 747 service to SAN as well.
Rosarito is only a little over an hour drive from San Diego (with no traffic, obviously much more coming back to the US at the San Ysidro port of entry) so it’s much easier to get to than schlepping to LAX.
Fair point. Was SAN-LHR running in 2017?
yes it was definitely running in 2017. I think BA has ran a service to SAN from the late 90s to around 2005 as a tag-on to the LHR-PHX 747 service, and then suspended it for several years until relaunching the route again sometime in 2012 as a non-stop flight and it has been a daily service ever since (aside from the pandemic).
as a fun side note, back around 2011-2013 there was a longhaul low cost airline called Zoom that flew a 767 from Gatwick to San Diego, but that route didn’t last too long (nor did the airline apparently). I think that would have made it one of the longest 767 routes in the world as its nearly 11 hours from London-San Diego.
Bored to death with this ‘pitiful’ lot.
The world has more serious issues to attend to!
They have sold their souls to Netflix.
How sad?
Sounds like Judas for 30 pieces of silver.
Sadly it appears you’re probably right but then I think royalty is so 17Th century. And now a laughing stock. France did us all a favor several times over and we should always be grateful. I think people can’t look away because so many of us see them as the mirror they are to our own families and communities. Still amazed About the nasty business between Camilla and the journo who later apologized…… I live in Aspen where 4500 people in a town of 7000 work for Aspen SkiCo whose owners think they are royalty. Revolution will eventually occur but maybe not in my lifetime.
Although this is off-topic, I’d like to ask you how the 4500 people who live in Aspen survive considering the astronomical cost-of-living? Economies work strange in those instances, such as perhaps Swiss mountain ski resorts and it’s not uncommon to see someone whose a mere maid make serious bank. On the other hand, sometimes the poverty of ordinary workers in such places is tragic. It’s something we don’t think about, in our daily lives or traveling, how people are supposed to get by. I was considering moving to Myrtle Beach but aside from the tourism industry, not a lot for me to do there in my profession.
If you are bored of them…then why are you reading an article about them. Harry is a public figure, of course there will be news about them. They are not the only famous, and well known figures who make programs about their lives, or write a book
Mathew….thanks for the insight, you have brought an excellent understanding of those interpretations of what Harry meant in his book ‘Spare’ regarding booking an airline.