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17 July, 2023

Instagram influencer looks to bring back flying’s ‘golden days’ with second hand A380s

An Instagrammer with more than one million followers is buying up second hand A380s to start the world’s newest airline.

James Asquith, the ambitious social media star with his eyes set on the skies, currently holds the record for being the youngest person to visit every country and has taken his passion for travel to the industry.

James Asquith Global Airlines CEO (Instagram/@jamesasquith)

Asquith has looked to Airbus A380s, which are the world’s largest passenger plane and were once seen as the future of aviation, however its popularity within the industry has fallen, with production stopping in 2021.

Hence, Asquith has seized an opportunity. The young traveller has set up Global Airlines and purchased an array of second hand A380s at a bargain.

“I think it’s the most fantastic commercial aircraft ever made,” he told Sky News “but you have to do something with that space that makes passengers want to step on board.”

🌎✈️ @skynews covering the launch of @globalairlines this morning – I find the Richard Branson comparisons flattering, thank you, but it’s a team, a family and truly AMAZING people behind Global – not just one crazy guy in me thinking that we can, and will, do things better -… pic.twitter.com/cV6boyOKSD
— James Asquith (@james_asquith) July 16, 2023

Asquith wants to bring back the ‘golden age’ of flying, where passengers had room for socialising assisted by an enhanced economy and business class experience.

“Go back to the 747. So many people talk about the golden days when the lounge was on the top deck, then you get lots of people who crunch the numbers saying ‘but we could actually put another 20 business class seats on the top deck’ and it slowly erodes what you can do. There has to be a middle ground and we think we have found that,” Asquith said.

The Global Airlines CEO believes he will save money by purchasing these aircraft rather than leasing, allowing him to put more into the flight experience.

However, Asquith’s ambitions have not gone uncriticised.

“The aviation industry is full of dreamers who want to fly the skies and bring competition, but it’s hard,” Paul Charles from the PC Agency and formerly of Virgin Atlantic said to Yahoo.

“They fail because they can’t bring their prices down low enough and compete with the bigger carriers like BA and Virgin. But they also fail because they can’t attract enough of the premium passengers they need to rely on to charge higher prices.

“The name says it all in our ambitions with Global. People can be sceptics, but they always are with any plan that sounds like it’s crazy.”

Featured Image: Global Airlines plane models (Instagram/@jamesasquith)

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