With the annual day of jokes and pranks once again upon us, airlines are among those teasing its customers with promotions that sound either too good — or, reversely, too bad — to be true.
The flagship carrier of the United Arab Emirates, Emirates took to social media platforms such as Instagram (META) , LinkedIn (MSFT) and X to announce its new VIP service. The final P in the acronym, however, stands for parcels.
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Very important parcels and standing room only
“Introducing our new service for VIPs: Very Important Parcels.📦🤩,” the Dubai-based airline wrote in its April 1 post. “Breaking the boundaries of commercial airline models, this new service provides door-to-door delivery with the same level of care that Emirates provides to all its other passengers.”
Between the lack of an official press release and the outlandish nature of the announcement, followers were quick to catch on to the fact that the announcement was part of an April Fool’s Day joke.
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A common one for airlines is to announce a “vertical room” or “standing room only” class — the final step for airline’s cost-cutting being a fare in which one stays upright throughout the length of the flight.
While this would go against both the FAA’s rules and aviation regulations in any other country, the April 1 joke of announcing it dates back to at least 2008 when Virgin Australia put up a link for its new “No Chair Fares” (over 1,000 people actually signed up before catching on to the fact that this was a joke).
This year, the joke was picked up by airline website Upgraded Points which published an article saying that Frontier Airlines (FRON) was launching a “vertical class” or standing-room fare.
For April 1, Emirates announced a new “Very Important Parcels” service.
Emirates
‘A Concorde in the air?’: More April Fool’s Day pranks
“Passengers looking to save as much as possible and who don’t mind being on their feet for the entire flight can soon fly for as little as $9 each way to any of the airline’s 120+ destinations,” the outlet wrote before announcing the hoax at the end of the article.
More on travel:
Trump starts presidency with three executive orders affecting travelGovernment issues new travel advisory on popular beach destinationAnother country just issued a new visa requirement for visitors
And for aviation history junkies, airline tracking platform FlightRadar24 sent out a push notification announcing that the legendary Concorde plane was in the air on a British Airways flight from London to New York.
While the supersonic airliner had the capacity to get between the two cities in just under three hours, it was officially retired in 2003 due to high fuel and operating costs that did not make it cost-efficient to run.
“I’m not imaging it, there’s a Concorde in the air?” one person wrote on the Meta social media platform Threads before catching on to the prank that FlightRadar24 knew would be particularly appreciated by fans of aviation.
And in a jab at Donald Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico and repeatedly referencing their country a 51st state since the start of the year, Canadian airline Air Transat changed its website to feature a map of the world and announcing that “it is officially changing the name of the Atlantic Ocean to the Canadien Ocean [the airline is based in Montreal, Quebec and used the French spelling of Canadian].
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