Irish Examiner view: Flight of fancy to save aviation?

Anything that allows people a (safe) flight of fancy in these difficult times deserves to take off. File picture: Andy Gibson

Could air meals, as opposed to air miles, be the bizarre new trend to save the devastated aviation industry?

In Singapore, diners paid almost €400 to eat a meal and catch a movie on board a stationary Singapore Airlines plane. Denied air travel, customers were clearly happy to fork out for the on-board experience even though the craft was not actually in flight.

Tickets were snapped up in less than half an hour when a pop-up restaurant on board the airline’s double-decker superjumbo offered the socially distanced experience at Changi airport.

Elsewhere, “flights to nowhere”, where planes take sightseeing flights without landing anywhere, have proved surprisingly popular. For the airlines running them, such as Australian airline Qantas and Hong Kong Express, it is a way of trying to recoup at least a portion of the heavy losses experienced by the aviation sector globally.

In Finland, those missing airline food  — is there really such a person? — will be able to buy Finnair’s business-class meals at one Helsinki supermarket soon. Reindeer meatballs at €10 anyone?

While those offerings may seem surreal, they are another example of the ingenuity and unquenchable will to survive we have witnessed as people do all they can to chip away at the obstacles put in their way by the pandemic.

Whether those measures will help to save airlines or not remains to be seen but anything that allows people a (safe) flight of fancy in these difficult times deserves to take off.