Welcome to Social Buzz, a daily column looking at what’s trending on social media platforms. I’m Caitlin Fichtel, an Editor on Bloomberg’s Breaking News team which monitors everything from company statements to tweets from some of the most prominent people in the financial world. Here’s your daily look at what the internet is talking about.
(Bloomberg) — Welcome to Social Buzz, a daily column looking at what’s trending on social media platforms. I’m Caitlin Fichtel, an Editor on Bloomberg’s Breaking News team which monitors everything from company statements to tweets from some of the most prominent people in the financial world. Here’s your daily look at what the internet is talking about.
First Class Airfare Steal
Cheap airline tickets were all the buzz on the internet as eagle-eyed travelers snapped up heavily discounted tickets in the fanciest cabins on All Nippon Airways after a currency conversion blunder. One customer paid just $890 for flights in first class all the way from Jakarta to the Caribbean via Tokyo and New York, and back again. That 14,500-kilometer (9,000-mile) journey would typically cost nearly 20 times as much in first class on ANA. Others grabbed tickets in business class for just a few hundred dollars instead of the usual $10,000 or so, with news of the glitch spreading on social media platforms.
An ANA spokesperson initially said the airline would honor the tickets for those who bought them, but the carrier said later that a final decision hadn’t been made, adding that one would be reached before the end of the month.
86-Year-Old Beer
Bottles of beer brewed 86 years ago for King Edward VIII’s coronation will go on sale next month, CNN reported. Edward VIII ascended to the throne in January 1936 after his father King George V died, but he abdicated in December of the same year ahead of the coronation so he could marry an American divorcee. The “Coronation Ale” was created to celebrate the event but was never sold and only discovered 75 years later at the Greene King brewery.
Most Populous Nation
India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation, according to United Nations data released Wednesday. India’s population surpassed 1.4286 billion, slightly higher than China’s 1.4257 billion people, according to mid-2023 estimates by the UN’s World Population dashboard.
Farewell Netflix DVDs
It’s the end of an era. Netflix Inc. is shutting down its original business of delivering DVDs by mail, 25 years after introducing a revolution in at-home TV viewing. The company will ship its final discs on Sept. 29, according to a statement Tuesday. Separately, the streaming service also said it will begin cracking down this quarter on US viewers who share someone else’s account, predicting plans to charge such customers will boost growth in the second half of the year.
Abortion Pill’s Fate
The Supreme Court is expected to issue an order on Wednesday on whether abortion opponents will successfully be able to roll back the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug mifepristone, the most common method of abortion in the US, AP reports. The Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the maker of the drug, say women who want the drug and providers who dispense it will face chaos if there are limits on it.
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–With assistance from Danny Lee, Supriya Singh, Eltaf Najafizada and Bibhudatta Pradhan.
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