Emirates Dubai Air Hotel hoax: Man behind video of A380 atop sky hotel reveals shocking truth

Dubai: A digital creator behind the viral Emirates Dubai Air Hotel video that fooled millions has spoken out about how news outlets transformed his AI-generated concept into a real project proposal with fabricated price tags and specifications that never existed in his original post.

On Sunday, Gulf News had exclusively reported that the spectacular video showing Emirates airline's proposed “Dubai Air Hotel” featuring a full-scale Airbus A380 mounted atop was debunked by the airline as “fabricated content and untrue.”

Cyprus-based George Hadjichristofi, founder and creator of Cypriot.ai, has now told Gulf News that the “$3 billion cost, 580m height and 125-storey” details widely reported across online media platforms were never part of his creative vision.

“The original post did not include details such as height, cost, or specifications. Those elements were not part of my description and were later added by third parties and media platforms," he said.

As reported by Gulf News, his post stated: “Imagine a 7-star hotel floating above Dubai, suspended between sky and city, redefining what luxury truly means. This is where aviation becomes architecture and imagination turns into experience. The future of luxury travel doesn’t wait on the ground — it takes flight.”

His revelation that the other details, which made people believe it is a real project proposed by Emirates, exposes a troubling trend in digital journalism where AI-generated content is being dressed up with invented facts to appear more credible, blurring the dangerous line between imagination and misinformation.

The video, first posted on Instagram in August, and amassed over 36 million views, showed a futuristic hotel concept with an Airbus A380 perched atop a skyscraper. When reposted recently with "Dubai Air Hotel" branding, several news sites and social media platforms published it as a real project.

Speaking from Cyprus, George explained that his fascination with the UAE stems from its unique mindset. "It is one of the few places in the world where ambition, imagination and technology are not only embraced but actively encouraged," he said.

But that very reputation became the hook that allowed media outlets to embellish his work beyond recognition. An architecture news website claimed developers had positioned it as a combined luxury hotel and aviation-themed experience.

Travel publications suggested it “could revolutionise not just the skyline but also the future of luxury hospitality itself,” and a hospitality news outlet dubbed it the "the wildest" hotel.

But none of it came from George, he clarified.

What struck George most was not the scale of attention, but “how ready people are to emotionally accept imagined futures…That response says a lot about where we are culturally and about the power of visual storytelling today."

The information technology specialist, who describes himself as a digital strategist and AI creator, emphasised that his work focuses on "transformation with impact—taking something abstract, imagined, or not yet possible, and giving it form in a way that feels inevitable, premium and emotionally real."

That realism, however, became a double-edged sword. The concept seemed entirely plausible in Dubai, a city that has turned palm-shaped islands, indoor ski slopes in the desert and the world's tallest building from dreams into reality.

"The original content was not edited by me after publication, and it was never presented as a real or planned project," George stressed.

While not currently a UAE resident, George says the UAE remains central to his plans. "I'm close enough to understand the region deeply, yet far enough to see it clearly. This allows me to interpret its energy and ambition through a global lens."

George's portfolio includes other Dubai-centric AI concepts: the world's largest ice skating rink at Burj Khalifa's base, a Titanic ship hotel, a theatre shaped like a camel and a fashion week in the sky.

The fashion week concept, featuring women in haute couture parachuting above Dubai landmarks, seemed eerily prescient when a video of a daredevil ‘lady in red’ suspended from an airship swinging across the Dubai skyline was posted recently by  Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council.

"If my work contributed in any way to inspiring imagination or pushing ideas further into reality, I can only see that as something positive," George said about the remote comparison, though he clarified there was no direct connection.

"Technology can generate images, but it's the human mind that gives them meaning, emotion and direction," George said. "I believe ideas only move forward when people feel something—curiosity, wonder, desire, possibility."

The question now is whether media organisations and social media channels will feel something too: accountability.