It Won’t Look Like This When You Land

How’s your Connecticut trivia? For instance, do you know that, in addition to being home to the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper, the Hartford Courant, some of the country’s largest health insurance providers, including Aetna, and Mark Twain’s Picturesque Gothic home in which he wrote many of his famous works, Hartford boasts shoreline sunsets like these:

I’ll admit, when I first saw this Aer Lingus ad —  spotted by a colleague’s friend at Dublin Airport — for new direct flights from Dublin to Bradley International Airport, I was puzzled. I have lived in coastal Connecticut my entire life, been to Hartford dozens of times, and never seen the capital city quite like this. After all, Hartford is located 40 miles from the coast. Indeed, as the ad claims, the city is situated in “the heart of Connecticut.”

Truth is, this is not Hartford. This is Hartford. The shoreline scene depicted in the Aer Lingus ad appears to be the famous Old Orchard Beach pier in Maine, which is some 200 miles east of Hartford.

Aer Lingus did not return a TINA.org request for comment. But an executive at the Irish airline last month told the aforementioned Hartford Courant that ads for the new route are meant to promote Hartford as a gateway to all of New England. Keith Butler, chief planning officer at Aer Lingus, told the Courant that other ads for service to and from Bradley will spotlight legitimate Connecticut visuals.

The Aer Lingus website, for its part, features an actual image of downtown Hartford:

So, yes, a little less sandy than Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

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