Taiwan offers fake boarding passes to travel-starved tourists for flight experience

An airport in Taiwan has come up with a bizarre plan to let people feel the experience of travelling after months of travel ban due to coronavirus pandemic. Taipei's downtown Songshan airport has started offering travellers the chance to check-in with a fake itinerary, go through the security check and even board a flight which doesn’t take off.

Around 7,000 people reportedly applied to get the travel experience with fake flight tickets and 60 people were randomly chosen for it. According to media reports, more such “flights” will be scheduled in the coming weeks where the passengers will get boarding passes for Airbus A330 of Taiwan's largest carrier, China Airlines.

While the aviation sector has received a huge blow due to the pandemic, Songshan airport used the opportunity to renovate and implement precautionary measures. The fake flight event is used to show off the renovation and convince the fliers about the safety measures at the airport. While Songshan is an important domestic hub, it also offers flights to Tokyo, Seoul and several Chinese cities.

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Uncertain future

Airlines are facing an uncertain future as the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the world with over 10 million reported cases of COVID-19. The airline industry has been severely hit due to the travel restrictions imposed by countries to contain the coronavirus, bringing the sector to its knees.

Several airlines have announced layoffs and shrunken their fleet to cut down the expenditure, aimed at adjusting to the smaller market post-pandemic. On June 25, Lufthansa announced a cost-cutting deal with German flight attendants’ union (UFO) on June 25  to deal with the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Germany’s flag carrier said in a statement that they have agreed on a package worth more than half a billion euros to deal with the economic effects of the crisis.

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(With agency inputs | Image: Twitter / @ChinaairlinesEN)