Air Zimbabwe has raised concerns about claims that have been circulating on social media suggesting that it is issuing hand written boarding passes.
The alleged boarding passes contained the following information:
- all three were allegedly for flights between Johannesburg and Victoria Falls;
- they all contained a reference number, starting with the unique identifiers, 169;
- they were stamped with alleged Air Zimbabwe signage; and
- the information contained in each boarding pass was recorded with a black pen, something that has never been practiced at any airport around the world.
Air Zimbabwe busts fake news about handwritten boarding passes
Rumours of the national carrier’s boarding passes surfaced on South Africa’s social media after a popular tweep shared the images, on Friday, claiming that officials at the national airline issued handwritten boarding passes.
It became clear, after we did our bit of digging, that this image was taken from another source, who had shared it two days ago, and had, in fact, not been handed to the fellow.
Furthermore, Air Zimbabwe had already addressed the matter on their social media. According to the national carrier, the allegedl boarding passes could not have been issued by them because:
- the ticket number prefix “169” below is not part of the Air Zimbabwe ticket sequence the ticket number;
- the JNB/VFA route has not been re-introduced yet thus not on current schedule;
- the flight number cited does not exist on our UM flight codes for the mentioned JNB/VFA route; and
- boarding passes are produced electronically by a Ground Handling company at the respective airport and not by Air Zimbabwe
