A TikTok influencer faked her Emirates first class experience. She got called out for it online by an Emirates flight attendant, and now that crewmember is in trouble.
The Thai TikToker with over 1.5 million followers booked a first class flight on the Emirates Airbus A380 from Bangkok to Hong Kong. That flight is frequently available for less than $1,000 – it’s only about 1,000 miles but still gives you the full bling experience.
@bifern_bivoyage ❤️ ฝันที่ไม่กล้าฝัน นั่ง First Class สายการบิน Emirates ✈️ #tiktokคนบันเทิง #บันเทิงtiktok #longervideos #เที่ยวต่างประเทศ #tiktoktravel #luxury #luxurylife #รีวิวสายการบิน #รีวิวเครื่องบิน #Emirates #fly #firstclass ♬ Beautiful Moments – Musik Relaksasi ID
Only it didn’t seem like that’s the route they flew. They made a video that made it seem as though they were on a 14-hour flight. They didn’t just take full advantage of onboard dining (five courses with caviar), they changed into their pajamas and laid down to sleep. They had a shower and curled her hair. They did all of the things.
The video went viral, with nearly 10 million views. And an Emirates flight attendant commented on the video. And kept commenting.
All this… 2 hours. 14 passengers.
She’s good at making clips. It looks like a DXB-SFO [Dubai–San Francisco] flight that takes 15 hours.
Two hours, shower, eat, sleep. When did you sleep? I don’t know. You even had time to curl your hair. Please.
Now the flight attendant is in “hot water.” Here’s the controversy.
@amindfulnomad Replying to @Myra The one and onl I honestly don’t understand why anyone would leave a negative comment let alone a negative comment from a profile with your full name and work details #fyp #emiratesairlines #emiratesfirstclass #aviation #flightattendant ♬ original sound – veronica
I’ve flown Bangkok to Hong Kong in Thai Airways first class years ago, and availed myself fully of the first class spa in Bangkok and pre-order meal selections beyond what was offered on board. I went out of my way to do it! That’s the product, it’s on offer, and the customer is entitled to it.
On the other hand, pretending you’re sleeping on board in addition to dining and having your shower as though it were a long haul flight does deserve to be called out I think! They say they’re flying Bangkok to Hong Kong and it’s just not possible to experience the product the way they show in the video. But an Emirates crewmember – posting using their real identity, and where they can be identified in uniform – is the absolute wrong person to do it.
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
WHAT?! An ‘influencer’ was dishonest?? I’m shocked. Shocked!!
Great post, Gary. Top-notch! Learning a lot here. High-brow stuff. Well done.
In the video it literally says BKK-HKG.
Sounds about right for Tik Tok.
Why anyone over age 20 pay attention to an “influencer” is beyond me. That being said the flight attendant should have stayed out of it. She’s not there to defend the airline in a public setting. That’s what the PR team is for, assuming they’d even want to respond to a fake like “influencer Tik Tok.” People paying $20K for a long haul first ticket wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what this “influencer” says.
Is this a racket by both parties (ticktoker and FA) to drive up TikTok clicks, because this is now gone viral so seems to have worked
Chinese influencer on Chinese owned social media. Everything Chinese is fake.
To be fair, she did state that it’s the BKK-HKG flight and that she didn’t even get to sleep because the flight is short.
Tik Toxic is a good description. The flight attendant should have known better. Let corporate answer and don’t get involved.
The flight attendant probably shouldn’t have called them out. But I also don’t see pointing out it was a 2 hour flight (even a bit sarcastically) as being particularly harsh.
To me, getting a flight that is long enough to show all the amenities, and showing them, doesn’t imply anything about the length of the flight. I mean, of course you wouldn’t usually do all the things in a 2 hour flight. By the same token, some resort, luxury hotel, or theme park might have enough stuff that it’d take a week to do it all if you were doing it at a normal pace, but a video (Tik Tok or not) of someone doing all the things there doesn’t imply to me they were there for a week.
It doesn’t sound like the “influencer” said anything negative about the airline in her original video. Even if she was misleading people about whether she took a short flight instead of a long flight, the flight attendant should have stayed out of the discussion rather than challenging the influencer.
If the influencer’s video really was problematic for Emirates, which I doubt, the flight attendant should have referred the video to higher-ups at the airline to give an official response.