CLAIM: British Airways is giving free tickets to 5,000 people to celebrate its 50th anniversary
CONCLUSION: FALSE
EVIDENCE: British Airways was founded in 1974 and is not even celebrating its 50 years of existence
FULL TEXT:
On July 18, 2019, Nigerians on Social media woke up to that the British Airways is giving 2 free tickets per family to five thousand people to celebrate its Anniversary.
Curious people who suspected the claim sent it to Dubawa to verify. But here’s a quick history lesson to understand why this FALSE.
British Airways (BA), the United Kingdom’s national airline, was formed in 1974 with the merger of the two largest UK airlines, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways (BEA). After a series of acquisitions and privatisation, British Airways entered a period of rapid growth, leading to the use of the slogan “The World’s Favourite Airline“.
By simple arithmetic, it will be wrong say an organisation birthed in 1974 will be 50 in 2019!
FURTHER VERIFICATION:
Dubawa also ran a quick online verification of the misleading broadcast and discovered that it is becoming a trend that people share yearly, whether mistakenly or with full knowledge of its falsehood.
A similar broadcast was shared on WhatsApp in 2017 and British Airways stated then that it weas not giving away free tickets as the hoax message suggested.
Luane Lavery, Brand communication manager for British Airways was quoted then to have said: “We are aware of the chain messages that are being circulated via social media. We can confirm that it is a hoax. British Airways is not involved in any give away.”
Again, in 2016, a viral post claimed to be a competition held by British Airways, proposed to give out 100 ‘All Inclusive first Class Trips to any destination worldwide’, including five star hotel ‘of your choosing’ and £5,000 in cash was also verified and discovered to be false.
Like the other hoaxes, the recent or latest broadcast asked clients to follow the same steps as in the previous similar hoaxes that were checked to be FALSE!
OUR CONCLUSION? We call this FALSE!
