Fake Airline Has Philly Giggling

An ad for "Derrie-Air" airlines made Philadelphia readers the butt of a publicity joke today, the AP reports. The owner of two newspapers and an ad agency revealed that the airline—which claimed to charge passengers by weight, and be carbon-neutral—was cooked up to prove the power of advertising. And it's generating online buzz aplenty, a media company says.

The ad aimed to “demonstrate the power of our brands in generating awareness and generating traffic for our advertisers, and put a smile on people's faces," said Philadelphia Media Holdings spokesman Jay Devine. "In other words," the website states, "smile, we're pulling your leg." (More hoax stories.)