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Global Airlines Operates First A380 Flight: This Keeps Getting Stranger
Yesterday, Global Airlines sort of operated its first Airbus A380 flight. While I covered this yesterday, I want to provide an update, as reviews are starting to be published, and everything about this airline just became even more unusual.
Yesterday, Global Airlines sort of operated its first Airbus A380 flight. While I covered this yesterday, I want to provide an update, as reviews are starting to be published, and everything about this airline just became even more unusual.
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 (the company only has legal authority to sell these as roundtrip charter flights departing Europe):
- 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 operated the flight to New York yesterday, in a flight time of 6hr20min.
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?
In total, there were under 100 passengers on the flight, which is kind of wild (but also not surprising, because you’d only take this flight if you were an enthusiast). I imagine there will be way fewer passengers than that on the return flight, given that many people are using throwaway ticketing.
Global Airlines CEO James Asquith has posted quite a few things on Instagram about this flight.
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.
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. Now, a few things to note:
- Technically, the flight is operated by a Maltese subsidiary of a 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.
If you want a chuckle (or something), Asquith’s wife posted to Instagram with a video of the plane taking off from Glasgow yesterday. The text reads “to everyone that said my husbands airline wouldn’t take off,” with lyrics in the background saying “that was rude, that was pretty f*cking rude.”
The inaugural Global Airlines reviews are… interesting
What was the inaugural Global Airlines flight like? Some reviews have now been published on YouTube, and ugh, the product looks pretty rough. To Global Airlines’ credit, the airline had amenity kits and menus in economy, caviar and nice champagne in business class, etc. But we’re talking about a charter flight with enthusiasts onboard, so that’s hardly surprising.
While those aspects sound nice, a lot of the other aspects of the experience sound less good — in business class, there’s mention of how the seats are falling apart, there’s no entertainment, the power ports don’t work, and the first meal service took three hours, with them running out of meal choices. By the way, this kid is kind of awesome!
The economy reviews aren’t much better. It seems the airline actually served business class meals in economy, just not plated as nicely.
I’m a little confused as to how the service was so slow, with such a big crew, and so few passengers.
Global Airlines’ future remains a total mystery
While I wasn’t expecting Global Airlines to operate any flight, let me emphasize what my primary 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.
For years, Global Airlines’ claim has been that it will 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. There’s not really much room across the Atlantic for independent operators, especially with a plane as large as the A380.
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. It’s going to be even less successful when you add yet another party to this.
There are a couple of interesting updates, though. For one, travel journalist Simon Calder was on the inaugural flight. He has been a skeptic of the airline, and Asquith kind of crashed his TV interview, with a bit of an attitude. When he was asked how he was feeling, he said “I’m feeling great, I think a lot of positivity, since you didn’t think this would happen.”
When Asquith was asked what happens next, he sarcastically responded:
“Who knows what happens tomorrow, who knows, we’ll see. Everyone said we wouldn’t get this far, right, including yourself, so let’s see. I think we’ve been pretty open and transparent with the journey, the difficulties, the problems, the challenges. Maybe we’ll turn the aircraft into a spa next.”
When Calder told Asquith that he hopes it all works out, he responded:
“Well, who knows, nothing is guaranteed tomorrow, so we’ll have to see.”
Separately, in the first YouTube review video above (around the 19-minute mark), Asquith was asked if the airline is making progress with getting an air operator certificate, and he suggested that’s no longer in the cards for now:
“We’ve flipped this around. A lot of people get their AOC and lease an aircraft. We’ve bought the aircraft and we work together with Hi Fly on the AOC. We see this as a much better strategy for the long term. An AOC is not necessarily an asset, it’s a big liability if you don’t use it right. We’ve got a lot of operational experience from Hi Fly for that, we want to keep using it for a while.”
I mean, yes, I suppose an AOC is a liability if you don’t use it right. I’d argue that an A380 is also a liability if you don’t use it right, but hey, to each their own.
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, or what kind of a strategy the airline has. For that matter, the CEO essentially saying “we’ll see what happens” and “nothing is guaranteed tomorrow” doesn’t exactly instill confidence.
In past interview, Asquith has said “I’ve sold and risked everything to be in the position I’m at, I’m putting everything on the line.” I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but for his sake, I hope it’s not. But who knows, with James Hogan now trying to raise money for the airline, what could go wrong?
