Global Airlines Flew Four Times And Parked Its A380

The airline that swore it would revolutionize the trans-Atlantic air market completed a pair of flights and has now put its A380 super jumbo jets to pasture. 

Global Airlines Completed A Pair Of Roundtrips Against Heavy Speculation

As covered here, and everywhere else online, there was intense speculation around a startup airline competing in one of the most contested markets in the country. Not only did it propose doing this with A380s which struggle to find the right route fit as it is, but it also intended to change the market with “gamer class”, connecting closed-door suites, and reinventing first class.

Most doubters presumed the airline would never get off the ground at all. The founder is 36 (later this year) has never before run an airline, though he did start a travel tech company for homeswapping. The A380s he intended to renovate were in storage, and securing the proper permits would take more time than its very aggressive schedule allowed, at least historically.

However, though a little late, Global Airlines operated a roundtrip on May 15th-19th from Glasgow to New York (JFK). The same day as its return to the UK it ferried to Manchester where it operated back to New York again on the 25th.

While the service may have been different than advertised, it did operate – through under a deal from HiFly, a known charter operator that held the aircraft after it purchased it from China Southern.

The A380s Have Been Parked In France

Just days after completing its pair of roundtrips, the A380 (the only one to operate of the proposed four) headed to Dresden and ultimately to Tarbes, France just north of the Spanish border.

“Global Airlines is sending its sole Airbus A380 back to storage in Tarbes, France, following its two return flights to New York. The airline tells Simple Flying that it will remain parked “until it heads off to the next stage of heavy maintenance”, though it emphasizes “it won’t be long until it is up in the clouds once again”. – Simple Flying

Heavy maintenance is understandable based on the aircraft’s age, but will be expensive, time consuming, and adds to the lore of the the entire operation.

Is It Any Surprise?

It took Global a couple of years just to pull off the first pair of roundtrips, and for that there was no gamer class, no reinvention of first class – it was a largely unchanged and filled with China Southern charm. While there’s been no public statement about why just two roundtrips were operated, it appears to me that it maintained some contractual deliverable. The airline clearly was not ready to operate scheduled flights with its full intended product yet it did so anyway.

The accusations were that the airline was competing in a tight market, and it opted for less busy UK-New York routes but still not new territory and not the London flights it initially announced. The doubters said that the timeline was too tight, and it was missed. It was said that the product changes were too ambitious and it appears they were largely not even attempted.

While those that said it would never happen were – technically – wrong, when matched against marketing claims, they were absolutely right. The Global Airlines product that was launched and then immediately pulled did not happen.

Conclusion

I’ve spoken with representatives of Global Airlines in the past but did not reach out to them on this occasion. They’ve publicly stated the the airline will be back. They didn’t give a timeline, a revision of the plan, nor an explanation (that I could find) of why the product so mismatched the marketing – especially after so much time. I can appreciate that perhaps management doesn’t yet know what the future will hold and is staying the course on the Global Airlines dream. Perhaps it will shock us all and return to the skies, or perhaps it will wake up and find the sweet dream is over.

What do you think?