# Pre-production report: "Why airplane food tastes bland" ## Part A. Gate **A1 Required fields: PASS** Title, hook, script, storyboard and CTA are all present and non-empty. Sources are attached to all three verified facts. **A2 Opener: FAIL** The hook starts with a greeting: "Hey guys, ever wonder why…" **A3 Money claims: PASS** No buy or sell wording, no return promises, and no guaranteed, 100%, can't lose or all in. **A4 Numbers: FAIL** | Where | Number | Covered by | |---|---|---| | Hook | (none) | n/a | | P1 | "about 8,000 feet" | Fact 2 (partly, see note) | | P2 | "around 12%" | **unsourced**. Fact 3 only says "less than 20%". | | P3 | "about 30%" | Fact 1 | | P4 | "up to 20% more salt" | **unsourced** | | CTA | "one food fact a day" | **unsourced**. This is a posting promise, not a factual claim. | Note on P1: Fact 2 says cabins are pressurized to "up to 8,000 feet." P1 says "about 8,000 feet" as if that were the typical level. 8,000 is the regulatory ceiling, not a typical value. **A5 Storyboard: PASS** The script has 5 paragraphs and the storyboard has 5 lines. **A6 CTA: FAIL** The CTA is one sentence and it matches the follow goal. But it adds a second ask: "and comment your weirdest airplane meal." **GATE: FAIL (A2, A4, A6)** ## Part B. Tone lint - **B1** greeting opener: "Hey guys, ever wonder why airplane food tastes like cardboard?" - **B2** wrap-up phrase: "In conclusion, it's not the chef, it's the cabin." - **B3** fake surprise: "Interestingly, the humidity drops to around 12%" - **B4** hollow emphasis: "it's important to understand that smell is most of taste" - **B5** passive by-phrases: none - **B6** repeated bridging question: "So what does this mean?" (P3) and "So what does this mean for airlines?" (P4) - **B7** same ending three times in a row: none - **B8** sentence over 25 words: "They add up to 20% more salt, and that's why the sauces" is the start of a 27-word sentence in P4. **Findings: 6** ## Part C. Fact-locked 30-second version | Time | Line | Shot | Fact # | |---|---|---|---| | 0-3s | Why does food taste bland on a plane? | Tray meal on seat-back table | 1 | | 3-10s | Airliner cabins can be pressurized to a cabin altitude of up to 8,000 feet. | Cabin window | 2 | | 10-20s | Cabin air is dry, usually below 20% relative humidity. | Humidity gauge | 3 | | 20-30s | In a Lufthansa-commissioned study of simulated cabin conditions, perception of salty and sweet dropped by about 30%. | Salt shaker | 1 | The facts do not say whether pressure or dryness causes the loss of taste. So the last line reports the study result and does not claim a cause. 30 seconds is an editing estimate. Read it aloud and adjust the length. ## Part D. Fix list 1. **A4, P4:** Remove or source "up to 20% more salt." No verified fact covers it, and it is a claim about what airlines do. 2. **A4, P2:** Replace "around 12%" with the figure Fact 3 supports ("less than 20%"), or add a source for 12%. 3. **A2 / B1, hook:** Remove the greeting "Hey guys," so the hook starts on the question. 4. **A6, CTA:** Remove the second ask, "and comment your weirdest airplane meal," to keep the CTA to the follow goal. 5. **A4, P1:** Change "about 8,000 feet" to match Fact 2's wording ("up to 8,000 feet"). 8,000 is the ceiling, not a typical value. 6. **B6, P3/P4:** Cut one of the two "So what does this mean…?" bridging questions. 7. **B8, P4:** Split the 27-word sentence beginning "They add up to 20% more salt…". Fix #1 may remove it anyway. 8. **B4, P2:** Remove the filler "it's important to understand that." 9. **B3, P2:** Remove the filler "Interestingly,". 10. **B2, P5:** Remove the filler "In conclusion,". 11. **A4, CTA:** "one food fact a day" is unsourced. No change is needed if you will actually post daily. Otherwise, adjust it to your real schedule. **Outside the gate:** Several claims in the script are not numbers but also have no verified fact behind them: "dries your nose," "smell is most of taste," "the sauces on planes are so heavy," and "your tomato juice suddenly tastes great up there." Consider sourcing them or cutting them before you publish.