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Fact Check
A video of a Sri Lankan Airlines aircraft with a special livery in celebration of the Kandy Esala Perahera.
This video is false. While Sri Lankan Airlines had a special livery for one of their aircrafts for the Esala Perahera, the viral video is AI generated.
The annual Esala Perahera festivities are of cultural significance to Sri Lanka, and this year, the peraheras, almsgivings, and other events took place from 30 July to 8 August in Kandy. Social media has been abuzz with posts about the festivities and its impact on Sri Lanka’s cultural tourism sector.
In this context, a TikTok posted by @xiaopix has been going viral on the social media platform and Facebook. It shows a Sri Lankan Airlines aircraft with special livery featuring elephants, Kandyan dancers, and other images associated with the perahera. The caption says, “What do you think of this new plane?”
Claims can be found here and here.
Newschecker decided to verify the truth behind the claim.
We first noticed that in certain places, the ground and runway of the aircraft at the airport appear blurry.
We then checked the Sri Lankan Airlines social media pages to understand whether the Sri Lanka Airlines had indeed redecorated its planes to mark the perahera this year. We found a Facebook post by Sri Lankan Airlines on July 19, 2025 announcing a special livery to mark the perahera.
On comparing the livery of the aircrafts seen in the viral images shared by the Sri Lankan Airlines on Facebook and viral TikTok video, we note that there is a marked difference in design. While the design in the images shared by Sri Lankan Airlines is rather simple, with traditional dancers and musicians, and no tuskers or elephants are on display, unlike in the viral video.
Moreover, we also noted that the placement of the design in both the aircrafts were also different.
To further confirm, we ran keyframes of the viral video via AI detection tools WasItAI and Cantilux:
WasItAI reported that it was “quite confident that the image or a significant part of it was created by AI.”
Cantilux reported a 76% probability for the image being AI-generated.
Thus, we find that the viral video is in fact false and AI-generated.
While Sri Lankan Airlines did have a special livery for one of its aircrafts to mark the Esala Perahera, the viral video is AI-generated.
Our Sources
Facebook post by Sri Lankan Airlines, posted on July 19, 2025
WasItAI AI detection tool
Centilux AI detection tool
Missing context
