If you’ve been on social media in the past month or two, especially if you follow groups/subreddits/threads that have to do with travel, you’ve probably seen it.
An uncredited, slightly fuzzy photo of a narrowbody plane. Three smiling flight attendants; 2 of which are holding what looks like open wine bottles. On either side of them are about 12 rows of passengers, in a 2×2 formation. And the following narrative:
The Helsinki-Toronto flight was loaded with 400 passengers and only 200 lunches. The airline made a mistake and the crew was in a difficult situation. However, an intelligent flight attendant has come up with an idea. About 30 minutes after take-off, she announced:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know how this happened, but we have 400 passengers on board and only 200 lunches!” “Anyone who is kind enough to give up food for someone else will receive a free unlimited amount of wine throughout the flight.”
Her next announcement was made 6 hours later: “Ladies and Gentlemen, if anyone wants to change their mind, we still have 200 lunches available!”
Moral of the story: wine drinkers have a very big and kind soul!
What is up with this?
From what I can tell, it started meandering its way on the internet some time in January, and most people were posting as a “feel good” story.
A few things that don’t make sense
The flight itself
If the flight was going from Helsinki to Toronto, that makes it sound as if it’s a direct flight. Problem is, there ARE no nonstop flights between Helsinki and Toronto.
The FA’s uniforms
I looked all over the internet for which airline requires their FAs to wear that uniform. Closest one is EasyJet, but they’re not the same, and their ID badges are orange, not gold.
Plus, even if I opened the Google flight search for 1 stop, that gives you Finnair, Air France, Delta, British Airways, American, Lufthansa or Air Canada. NONE of those airlines’ respective uniforms have an orange neck kerchief.
What they’re wearing
If the flight was coming from Helsinki, even in the summer, where 70 degrees is a “hot” day, would there really be THAT many people wearing short sleeved shirts?
The passengers
80% of Finns have naturally blonde hair. I see only one blonde person in that entire photo. Are they all Canadian???
The wine
The FAs are holding bottles of red wine, but all the passengers are holding glasses of rose.
The size of that plane
I’m no expert on planes. But I’m sure some of you can figure out what kind of plane this could be, with its 2×2 configuration. BUT…if the plane is only 4 seats across, does that mean the flight has 100 rows??? I think that might be physically impossible.
Changing story
The more I dumpster dived into the story, the more subtle differences I discovered:
- Some stories said they’d get free liquor, not free wine
- One said there were 300 people on the plane, not 400
- One story said the flight started in Dublin and was headed for Sydney
- Another one left out where the plane was traveling from and to
BUSTED
As I researched more, I discovered a couple more important things that busted the whole thing open as a farce:
- the story’s very first appearance was on Reddit, in a r/Jokes subreddit, 3 years ago
- if you look at the photo carefully, you can tell it’s AI.
— The further back you go, the odder the “passengers'” faces become
— The hand of the guy over the shoulder of the FA with the wide open mouth is just…weird (hands are hard for AI)
Meanwhile, several people got duped that the story was real. Either that, or they were trying to figure out where the photo came from. A (translated) French site went as far as to suggest that photo was believed to be a picture of employees from the PriceWaterhouseCoopers consulting company, as indicated on the label of the bottle held by the flight attendant and the style of the letter C on the white polo shirt of the guy towards the front. They suggested the photo was probably during a flight chartered by the company.
Ummm…no. Good imagination there, though.
Surprisingly, the story hasn’t made it to the likes of Snopes or ThatsNonsense yet. But give it time.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
