Cool: Global Airlines Operates First A380 Flight, Sort Of Kind Of

Global Airlines is currently operating its first Airbus A380 flight. Well, sort of. Let’s go over the details, give the airline some credit, and then discuss what’s next.

Global Airlines A380 flies from Glasgow to New York

I’ve written extensively about airline startup Global Airlines, which is in possession of an ex-China Southern A380, with mostly original interiors (seats have been reupholstered, and it looks like they bought little lamps for premium seats).

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how the airline put its first flights on sale, in a rather unusual way. The airline isn’t launching regularly scheduled flights, but is essentially selling seats on two roundtrip charter flights:

• For May 15-19, the airline is operating a roundtrip Glasgow (GLA) to New York (JFK) journey
• For May 21-25, the airline is operating a roundtrip Manchester (MAN) to New York (JFK) journey

I’m not sure what exactly the point of these trips is, or how it gets the airline closer to launching regularly scheduled operations. But the 12-year-old A380 with the registration code 9H-GLOBL is currently enroute to New York, so the airline seems to be moving forward with these plans.

Let me start by apologizing for not being on the inaugural flight. I was so close to booking the inaugural flight, but it didn’t quite work out. I guess there’s always the Manchester trip for next week. In all honesty, I’m kind of happy I didn’t book this flight, since it seems like every aviation influencer is on there.

There’s nothing wrong with that (or them), but my point is simply that this doesn’t actually give you any impression of what the service would be like, as I imagine it’s just one big party. Like, of course the airline is even offering caviar in business class and amenity kits in economy on this flight, because why wouldn’t they?

Global Airlines CEO James Asquith has posted quite a few things on Instagram about this flight.

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A post shared by James Asquith (@jamesasquith)

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A post shared by James Asquith (@jamesasquith)

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A post shared by James Asquith (@jamesasquith)

I think the caption on the picture of the first class seats is interesting:

We are so proud of the onboard product. First class chinaware made in England and caviar in business class, with amenity kits in every cabin.

Lets take a moment to remember that things will never be perfect on day 1, nor the finished product, but for us, we want you all to help us roll out more in the future and help improving the vision of Global.

If you look at any airline in history, their product on day 1 was never their finished product, and goes through many evolutions.

It’s a testament to aviation how big the leap has been the last few years in the onboard hard product. As some people will know, it takes many, many years to design, certify and test and new product, sometimes as long as 7-8 years.

YouTuber Noel Philips seems to be on the flight, and while there’s no inflight Wi-Fi, he posted some pictures from the ground to his Instagram Stories. Based on that, it looks like the plane has no entertainment system (like, they obviously haven’t purchased a package), and his first class seat seems to be falling apart. But aside from that…

Let me give Global Airlines some credit

Let me stop for a moment and give Global Airlines some credit. I wasn’t expecting that Global Airlines would ever operate a flight with passengers, so the airline has now accomplished something that many other questionable airline startups haven’t, which is to actually carry passengers. As you can see in the title, I said the airline “sort of kind of” operated its first A380 flight. I say that for a few reasons:

• Technically, the flight is operated by Portuguese wet lease operator Hi Fly, and not Global Airlines
• Global Airlines actually operated a charter flight a couple of weeks ago, from Barcelona (BCN) to Berlin (BER), so this wasn’t even the first flight
• This is really also just a charter flight, and not actually a regularly scheduled commercial flight

But hey, kudos to the company for getting this far. Actually operating a flight is an accomplishment, and I have no doubt that a lot of work went into this. Admittedly as long as you have the money to spend, there was nothing preventing this from happening, especially since the airline isn’t even doing this under its own air operator certificate.

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I don’t understand what’s next, though

While I wasn’t expecting Global Airlines to operate any flight, let me emphasize what my primarily claim has been all along, which is that I don’t think Global Airlines will ever operate regularly schedule flights under its own air operator certificate.

Global Airlines claims it wants to start operating transatlantic flights and bring back the “good old days” of flying, but it doesn’t actually seem like much progress has been made there at all. Acquiring a used A380 isn’t cheap, but it’s a small part of the investment that will need to be made for this operation to be scaled, and to introduce a more competitive onboard product.

For that matter, I just don’t see where the business case is for this carrier. Transatlantic travel is controlled by the “big three” joint ventures, as that’s where all the lucrative traffic is. I haven’t seen any progress made toward these kinds of operations launching, so who knows where things go from here. There’s not really room across the Atlantic for independent operators.

I suppose we could see Global Airlines keep having some charter flights operated by Hi Fly, but there’s no money to be made there. Keep in mind that Hi Fly itself briefly acquired an A380 to charter out to other airlines, and the concept didn’t work out.

One certainly wonders who is bankrolling the current state of things, since all of this can’t be cheap, and I don’t see where the upside is. But I guess with James Hogan now trying to raise money for the airline…

Bottom line

Global Airlines is currently operating an A380 flight from Glasgow to New York, and I’m sort of sad to not be onboard. Congrats to the Global Airlines team for actually operating a flight (well, in partnership with Hi Fly), as I wasn’t expecting that to happen.

Now, will the airline ever actually operate a regularly scheduled, commercial flight, under its own air operator certificate? That I remain skeptical of…