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Alex Svanevik, a Norwegian businessman, was flying from Abu Dhabi to Singapore when he found he was the only passenger. On the Eithad Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, 335 seats out of 336 were empty.

Svanevik tweeted: “I’m alone on my flight to Singapore. The pilot makes all announcements starting with “Mr Alexander”

“It’s 100 percent true and 120 percent surreal.” He also shared a video of the eerily empty flight to his Twitter account.

Svanevik was keen to point out he wasn’t causing extra pollution by taking the solo flight.

He said: “NOTE: They told me the plane would have flown anyway. So I’m not single-handedly f** up the earth.”

The aircraft would likely have had a return flight from Singapore so would have made the journey anyway.

A flight from Abu Dhabi to Singapore normally takes around seven and a half hours on Etihad.

Svanevik even received a personal welcome upon landing at Changi airport in Singapore.

The pilot can be heard saying on the tannoy: “Good morning, Mr Alexander and welcome to Singapore.”

Tweeter Laura Shin, replied to Svanevik: “I love that they addressed you with every announcement!”

Although rare, Svanevik is not the first commercial airline passenger to receive a private flight.

In 2019, another man got a solo flight after he was the only passenger on a flight from Lithuania to Italy.

Skirmantos Strimaitis was flying from Lithuanian capital, Vilnius to the northern Italian city of Bergamo.

On his flight to a skiing holiday in April 2019, Strimaitis got the entire 188 seat plane to himself.

Strimatiis found himself flying solo after Novaturas, a travel agency, chartered a plane to fly a group home from Italy to Lithuania.

To avoid flying the outbound trip with a completely empty aircraft, Novaturas tried to sell one-way tickets to Bergamo.

Only one was sold, so Strimaitis found himself alone on the flight with two pilots and five crew.

In other situations, commercial flights may be carrying cargo which means they are unable to take on as many passengers.

In response to Svanevik’s tweet, Tommy Strong, said: “Happened to me once on a domestic flight.

“The strange thing is when they give the required safety talk they are looking right at you.

“You have to pay attention and nod. Got to sit in first and had all the chips and cookies I wanted.”

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