Airline's cheeky Prince Harry dig after Meghan Markle…

Airline's cheeky Prince Harry dig after Meghan Markle first class flight claims

An airline has left people divided after issuing a tongue-in-cheek response to a claim made by Prince Harry in Spare.

In just one of many much-discussed segments of the Duke of Sussex's new memoir, Harry claims that his wife Meghan bought a first-class ticket for her father Thomas Markle to allow him to escape media intrusion by flying from Mexico over to the UK. Harry writes in Spare: "We told him, leave Mexico right now: 'A whole new level of harassment is about to rain down on you, so come to Britain. Now.'"

Harry described the flight in question as "Air New Zealand, first class, booked and paid for by Meg." However, Air New Zealand themselves were quick to refute the claims and suggested that Harry's anecdote was false, with a spokesperson telling the New Zealand Herald: "We've never had flights between Mexico and the UK. And we only have Business Premier."

As excerpts from the memoir quickly spread across social media, Air New Zealand weighed in with a cheeky swipe at Harry and Meghan. Taking to Twitter, the airline wrote: "Introducing Sussex Class. Apparently coming soon."

The remark divided opinion on the platform, with some branding it "hilarious" and "comedy gold" while others accused the airline of being "unprofessional" and "bad form".

"I like your sense of humour," one person wrote.

"Brilliant," said another. "Love the personality of Air New Zealand."

But others strongly disagreed, with one Twitter user saying of the comment: "Well, this is tacky and deffo a misstep."

Another responded: "Wow, I had a really good impression of Air New Zealand until seeing this. Surprisingly petty. Gross."

Meanwhile, New Zealand news website Stuff weighed in by pointing out that Air New Zealand used to run flights between Los Angeles and London before the pandemic - which would mean that the flight could have taken place after all. The publication reported that Meghan could indeed have booked tickets through the airline from Mexico to London, in which case United Airlines (Air New Zealand’s Star Alliance partner) would have flown Thomas from Mexico to LA before Air New Zealand took him from LA across to the UK.

Spare sold more than a staggering 1.4 million copies on its first day of publication - the largest first-day sales for any non-fiction book ever published by industry giants Penguin Random House. Additional copies are having to be printed in the US to meet demand after the initial run of two million is expected to quickly sell out.

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