Review of Global Airlines’ A380: The World’s Most Controversial Startup Airline

• Airline: Global Airlines
• Class: Business
• Aircraft: Airbus A380-800
• Route: Glasgow (GLA) to New York City (JFK)
• Flight time: 9 Hours 45 Minutes

Today we are flying the world’s most controversial startup airline, Global Airlines, as their Chief Commercial Officer says, “the airline everyone talks about on the internet.”

We are flying on the Airbus A380 from Glasgow all the way to New York on their very first flight. Read on for the review on this historic aviation adventure.

Global Airlines was founded a few years ago by James Asquith, the youngest person to ever visit every country on Earth and also known for his humerous travel videos and dressing up on first-class flights. He promised to redefine traveling and bring back the golden years of flying.

They bought a single second-hand Airbus A380, and ever since, the aviation industry went crazy. “It’s a scam, they will never take off,” and “This is going to be a big failure” are frequently seen comments when you dive deeper into the Global Airlines story.

I have to be honest, a lot of things don’t add up. But who am I to judge? I’m here to see whether they really live up to their extremely ambitious promises.

We started the journey in Glasgow, Scotland, from where Global’s first flight is going to take off. I paid around £2,300 to be part of this aviation adventure, and I couldn’t wait to see how it goes.

I was told around 90 people were booked on this inaugural flight, their very first revenue flight to New York.

The check-in process was straightforward. The staff asked if I had a visa, and in a big moment for me, I could say yes!

After five long years of not being able to travel to the United States, I finally got a 10-year visa, which means there’s a lot of US content coming in the next couple of months.

So a very interesting anecdote, exactly 10 years ago in 2015, I did my very first flight review. I uploaded my very first video flying China Southern Airlines’ Airbus A380 from Beijing to Amsterdam, and this was the exact same plane!

The livery of the Global Airlines aircraft is kept very simple. Some people even say it’s generic, and you can’t help but notice all the patches on the wing as well.

You would think they would have done a better job preparing this aircraft for its very first flight after being grounded for the past two years.

So it’s finally happening! A couple of years in the making, we’re taking the very first Airbus A380 flight of Global Airlines, operated by Hi Fly. Let’s get on board!

I had the opportunity to speak with Richard Stevenson, the Chief Commercial Officer of Global Airlines, before the flight.

He expressed his excitement about this long-awaited moment and acknowledged the tremendous amount of work that has gone into making this flight possible.

Here we have Global Airlines’ business class cabin, featuring 70 seats in a 1-2-1 configuration, all located on the upper deck of the Airbus A380.

On today’s flight, only the upper deck was being used by the airline, as only 90+ passengers were booked. The plane has 506 seats in total.

The seats are exactly what China Southern used to fly 13 years ago when they received this plane. At the seat, you find there’s a little certificate signed by the founder and CEO James, as well as a menu.

It isn’t exactly what was promised when you see the photos that the airline was showcasing online of what their potential business class or first class would look like.

They received this plane over two years ago so they could have refurbished it if they really wanted to. Of course, there are constraints in the industry at the moment, especially when it comes to cabin refurbishment, but then, the right expectations should be set.

Starting off with something that has become a rarity in business class nowadays are pyjamas, which this airline has. I also got a pair of slippers and an amenity kit.

The amenity kit contains:

• Black Tea cologne
• Black Tea body wash
• Sea salt toothpaste
• A comb
• A shoe horn
• Ear plugs
• A dental kit
• A small mirror
• A Global Airlines branded pen
• Socks
• Eye shades

Is it the best amenity kit I’ve ever seen? Definitely not. Is it anything outstanding? No.

It’s a very standard amenity kit which you see on many other airlines, so definitely not “redefining travel” when it comes to amenities.

In terms of in-flight entertainment, they have built-in screens which weren’t working. Alternatively, they have a QR code where you can connect to the Wi-Fi to access their library of films. However, on this flight, it also was not working.

The Wi-Fi shows a very low signal strength, so maybe I suspect the router might be too far away from the bulkhead seats. Still, not ideal on a 9+ hour flight.

The crew is mainly from Portugal since this is operated by Hi Fly, a Portuguese airline. I’ve flown with Hi Fly in the past, and it was terrible. The crew was poor, couldn’t be bothered, and the planes are usually in awful conditions.

Hi Fly typically fill gaps wherever there’s a need, especially in countries such as Senegal, Congo, Pakistan, and Algeria.

According to the crew and the menu, there would be both a lunch and dinner service, which I thought is very ambitious.

2 hours into the flight, we still hadn’t been served lunch. It wasn’t until 3 hours when my starter finally arrived, and when it did, it looked a bit sad.

The bread roll was cold, and even though the crew took my order twice, they still got it wrong, giving me a garden salad instead of Greek. I did eventually get the right order though after letting the crew know.

It took 57 minutes between my starter and main course, which is quite a disaster in terms of service timing. A good airline takes a maximum of 10-15 minutes between courses, but this was really poor.

The crew also didn’t pay attention very much. Not only did it take 16 minutes just to get a drink, the crew didn’t pay attention to ask if I wanted to top up my drink despite my glass being empty.

It’s the small details and attentiveness that really elevates your experience on a flight, especially on Business, but that was lacking here.

It took 4 hours in total for lunch to be fully served. There was supposed to be caviar and a dinner service, but the service was extremely slow so the dinner service was cancelled. Very baffling.

The sea bass I ordered was actually really good in terms of taste, but it was lukewarm at best.

Other passengers also reported receiving cold chicken, with the crew even asking if they wanted it warmed up – which immediately raised red flags.

For dessert, you all know I love cheesecake, so that’s what I went for. The taste was very nice, but again, service was slow.

The moment I’d been waiting for – the caviar I paid £2,200 for. The packaging was difficult to open, but the caviar itself was decent.

I spoke with passengers in economy class who reported it was relatively comfortable, mainly because the cabin was half empty. There were significant issues such as:

• No in-flight entertainment
• No in-seat charging
• Headrests detaching from seats
• Hard seat backs
• Janky headrests

Global’s first-class cabin features 8 suites in the front of the plane on the main deck. The cabin maintains the original China Southern Airlines configuration from when the aircraft was first delivered 13 years ago.

The first-class experience wasn’t much better. Passengers reported that while the seats were comfortable, the service had the same issues – cold food, slow service, and an overall tired feel to the aircraft.

After sleeping on it and really thinking about what to say, my message to the team at Global Airlines is this…

First of all, tremendous respect for getting an A380 airborne and creating your airline. That’s a hard job, and I know the effort and time that was spent to make this happen.

However, I think it’s not favorable to overpromise and underdeliver. You were very outspoken and promised us a new world, a new level of traveling, and that didn’t happen. It was really far away from it.

The main issue is that Hi Fly is not capable of delivering the experience you envisioned. If you hired your own crew and trained them accordingly, I’m very sure this would be a success given the passion and experience you both have.

Perhaps you need to:

1. Have an honest conversation with Hi Fly
2. Manage expectations better
3. Make smaller and less sensational promises to your audience
4. Consider hiring and training your own crew

I want this to be a success because stories like this are important for the industry. They inspire the younger generation, and that’s what’s really important. It would be great to see more competition and more A380s because it’s a fantastic plane.

But after this experience, I recommend Global should probably get together and readjust their strategy and goals. Maybe make fewer promises so they can overdeliver instead of underdelivering.

This feedback comes from flying over 225 airlines, so I can put it in the right context and make a good judgment. All of this is honest feedback to help them plan the next steps.

I wish them good luck, and I really hope this dream continues for many years, that their fleet grows, and that they become a great and respectable airline.

That was my opinion on Global Airlines. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss my reviews and videos!

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This is it guys, wherever you’re off to, have a safe trip!

About the Author

Josh Cahill is an award-winning Aviation YouTuber who is reportedly one of the most-watched flight reviewers on the internet. He organised Afghanistan’s first all-female flight together with Kam Air in February 2021 on a flight from Herat to Kabul for which he received the Aviation Achievement Award. His favourite hobby? Flying exotic airlines nobody has ever heard of.