Who Takes Top Honours For Best April Fools Gag? WestJet & TSA
I’ll be the first one to admit it, I really don’t like April Fools Day … especially when its perpetuated by legitimate news and editorial organizations, large corporations and government entities using April Fools Day to create fake news stories. The intertwining of legitimate news and gag news stories crosses the line and muddies the water of what is legitimate; there are however some exceptions that at least make me crack a smile and laugh.
This past Friday was the infamous annual day when people around the world have no idea what to believe and have a harder time selecting what is real news and fake news, so having pondered some airline and aviation April Fools gags this weekend there were some strong contenders. In the end it was whittled down to two contenders … so we’ll start with the runner up.
The runner up for the best airline and/or aviation April Fools gag goes to Canada’s WestJet. Yes the Canadian counterparts to Southwest Airlines (sort of) narrowly edged out Southwest Airlines with their hysterical faux news story that the airline would begin filling its aircraft with helium to make the planes lighter and save on fuel. WestJet’s minute-and-a-half video is hysterical … so take a moment to check it out here:
Beating out WestJet for the best April airline and/or aviation April Fools gag goes to an unlikely contender, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). On second thought the TSA might have been a likely April Fools gag contender when you factor in that they have included the “Light Saber” in their list of “Can I Bring” items for airline passengers.
On April Fools Day the TSA announced its usage of “Alien Detection Officers” (ADO) at airports who have been specially trained to detect space aliens that had been bypassing airport security checkpoints by using invisibility cloaks. The TSA’s Blog states “We know they’ve been observing flight operations at some of our busiest airports, but we had no idea they were coming in. It’s not entirely clear what their intentions are, but they need to be screened just like anybody else.“
The whole April 1st “TSA Space Alien Detection Officers (ADO)” by the TSA’s Blogger Bob will leave you chuckling and it’ll be easy to see why it take top honours for the best April Fools Gag.
Happy Flying!
Westjet’s video is absolutely hilarious. And, on second thought, I’d like to hear what Mr. O’Leary from Ryanair has to say about this 🙂
The reaction to the TSA blog about Alien Detection is interesting. I think a lot of people are just losing their sense of humor. I thought it was funny and the cost to the tax payer minimal.
The TSA attempt was OK, but given the fact that the TSA is the one government agency most oppressing our freedoms with their continued strip search scanners and sexual assault pat downs, I am not inclined to give them a pass.
They did not publish my comment, but I had suggested since there have been 0 US Domestic airline passenger bombings over the last 49 years – to be clear, this means ZERO passengers who have stepped on a US-originating flight have attempted to set off a bomb – they should focus on foreigners. For example, when your Dad calls the US and tells you not to let their son fly to the US, you might want to check that out…like we were called by the Nigerian so-called “underwear bomber” (not even account for the poorly conceived plan due to the fact that PETN usually requires a blasting cap or wire-based detonator, not a liquid).
And, since aliens are foreigners, perhaps if they just shot them, “sight unseen”, they would be 100% able to stop the aliens from even being on a plane.
I suspect the real TSA is evaluatiing the idea of killing passengers first to reduce the zero dead/injured in 49 years as this risk is apparently worth trashing our freedoms. Perhaps the TSA will start resurrecting people to reduce the risk even further.
Meanwhile, back to the real world with strips searches and molestations.
Enjoy your travels,
Jeff
Jeff,
In writing about the April Fools gags I was seeking to avoid the politics of it all, but I knew it would pop up. Honestly, I just thought the blog post was very funny.
As for the December 2009 bomber boarding a flight after the US Gov’t had been warned, this is a matter of the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency dropping the ball. TSA had nothing to do with the process.
I have not had the time over the past weeks to really dive into the stories I want to write about them, leaving me with a bag log of about 16 TSA stories to sift through. I hope to get back to writing about them in the next few weeks as time allows for it. Each story, even the short ones, require quite a bit of research.
Happy Flying!
-Fish