A bad time, we see, for Skuli Mogensen, founder and CEO of Icelandic carrier Wow Air.

Morgensen’s firm, stupidly, blitzed the press with a silly lie about a £99 fare from London Stansted to New York, nonsense that was nevertheless picked up and publicised unquestioningly by such quality organs as the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, the Sun and Hello magazine. Fortunately one sensible journalist, Simon Calder, checked out the scam on behalf of readers of the Independent and its i paper and reported that the £99 fare did not exist, and that the best Mr Morgensen could offer was a one way fare of £170 or a round trip for £251, both entailing first flying to Keflavik airport in Iceland rather than non-stop.

Morgensen’s efforts at misleading, opined Calder, proved the fake news principle that “a fib can travel halfway around the globe while the truth is putting on its boots” So mind who you believe.