Let's be honest, does anyone really enjoy the airport experience?
Whether it be getting up at some ungodly hour, forgetting the passports, or going full Home Alone and losing one of the group, the average trip to the airport isn't exactly a stress-free time.
If it's not having your genitals flagged by a scanner, it's the fear that your plane engine could burst into flames before takeoff.
Some gluttons for punishment have taken to making their airport experience even more stressful with the viral TikTok trend where they try to arrive at their flight as late as possible.
Advert
Just when you think you can kick back and catch a few zzzs without that screaming kid in front waking you up, imagine the panic when you realize you're on the wrong flight and have landed at the wrong airport.
While we'd like to think that's a rarity that doesn't tend to happen, one YouTuber decided to prank planes full of passengers into thinking they'd arrived at a different destination from the one stamped on their tickets.
This is exactly what Max Fosh did, spending $6,000 to trick travellers into thinking they'd landed at Luton Airport instead of London's Gatwick Airport.
More than just panic about potentially landing at the wrong final destination, we imagine there were many who feared they might miss a connecting flight.
Fosh is the same YouTuber who legally declared himself dead and went on a quest to be the most wanted man in Europe, but while these were mostly victimless pranks, the airport stunt drummed up plenty of controversy.
Making headline news in the national press, Fosh explained how he rented a piece of land and put up giant letters that said 'Welcome to Luton' near Gatwick Airport.
Laying out 150 sqm of tarpaulin, Fosh's installation was up for six weeks, but he wasn't sure if you could see it from the air. Booking himself on a flight, Fosh confirmed that you could see 'Welcome to Luton' in all its glory, even convincing a woman behind him that she was landing at the wrong airport. Unimpressed, she can be heard referring to it as a 'mean joke'.
Posting on Reddit, someone called Fosh an 'a-hole', although others on his YouTube video were more supportive. One person wrote: "Practical jokes should be disturbing, amusing, shocking maybe, but ultimately harmless and cause no damage. This one is near perfect."
Another added: "The funniest part of this story is that nobody panicked except for the imaginary people in the media's headlines."
A third concluded: "So many 'pranks' the past few years are not pranks, they’re just people bullying or abusing others- like those parents that actually got arrested for 'pranking' their child. This is brilliant, like you said, because it's shocking, confusing, and worrisome but it’s ultimately harmless :)."