Where Am I Really Flying?

There’s a comforting assumption we all make about modern air travel: airlines may occasionally lose your luggage, charge you £4.50 for a bottle of water, or somehow board Group 7 before Group 2, but at the very least they know where you’re flying.

Apparently, that assumption is wildly optimistic.

On Sunday evening, ahead of my Monday afternoon flight from London City Airport to Zurich, I received a helpful email from a major European carrier. The subject line confidently informed me it concerned my “flight to Zurich”, which was encouraging, because that is indeed where I was planning to go.

Things quickly unravelled from there.

First, the airline told me they were “looking forward to welcoming you on board for your upcoming trip to London Heathrow.”

This came as something of a surprise. Was there a scheduled stop, after taking off from the East London airport, to pick-up more passengers in West London? Had I accidentally booked a mystery tour? Was this some exciting new aviation concept where passengers only discover their destination after take-off?

Just as I was processing this unexpected development, the email helpfully warned me about “longer processing times at Brussels airport security” and recommended arriving earlier than usual.

Brussels, for those unfamiliar with European geography, is neither London City Airport, London Heathrow nor Zurich. In fact, it is in an entirely different country. How and why was I expected to travel to Brussels first to pass Security?

At this point I began to suspect that somebody had fed an airline notification system into ChatGPT and then immediately taken a lengthy holiday.

The remarkable thing is that every individual piece of information in the email was probably correct for somebody. Somewhere, there may well have been a passenger travelling to Heathrow from Brussels who genuinely benefited from this advice. Unfortunately, that passenger wasn’t me.

The email felt less like a pre-flight update and more like one of those AI-generated images where everything looks plausible until you notice the pilot has six fingers and the aircraft has three wings.

To be fair, my actual flight to Zurich departed perfectly normally the next day.

From London City.

Not Heathrow.

And thankfully without the need to clear security in Brussels.