First Class on the World's Newest Airline (Global Airlines)

Today we have been invited to fly first class on the world's newest airline. On their inaugural flight from Manchester to New York, Global Airlines went as big as you possibly can with their first plane. It is a double decker A380, which is the largest passenger plane in the world. But probably the coolest thing about this new airline is it was founded by a guy named James Asqui, who just happens to be the exact same age as me. I felt like I had accomplished a lot in the first 36 years of my life, but he took it to a whole new level. He was the youngest person in the world to travel to every country. He got famous on social media and he started a company called Holiday Swap, which if you Google the Internet says is worth $400 million. And now he is starting an airline. He's like the modern day Richard Branson, who if you don't know, is the guy that founded all the Virgin brands. This is going to be such an interesting video to look back on 10 years from now because either Global Airlines will have gone out of business and no one will remember them, or it's going to be this massive airline with a huge fleet and it's going to be absolutely crazy that we were on their first plane. But no matter what happens 10 years from now, I think today is going to be an absolute blast because not only are flying in first class, but the founder himself is joining us along with a few other fun characters in the travel space.

Is this the most fun flight that we've ever been on? 100%.

Before we get started, I just wanted to let you know that our company Daily Drop is currently having its summer sale and you can get $50 off a year long membership. I'll leave more information down in the description that you can check out, but more on that later.

Where do we go? Because it's a brand new airline, there are signs outside that tell you where to enter the airport.

It's not on the board, but I'm pretty sure we're in the right place.

I love it.

Ah, found it. Cupcakes. Cupcakes and a photo op. Do you think you can bring cupcakes through security or should I eat it now?

Let's see if it tastes as good as it looks. Good cupcake.

And Nate's a harsh critic on cupcake.

All right, we are all checked in for our flight, but since Global Airlines is a new airline, they're not operating their own lounges yet. So they partnered with the fire lounge and that's what our first class tickets Are getting us access to our first class tickets. Also give us access to the fast track lane through security. So we are through in a matter of minutes and heading to the lounge.

Aspire.

I aspire of a cup of coffee.

So this is the same lounge that we would get access to basically if.

We were flying any other airline because.

We have priority pass. But the reserve table is a very nice touch. To the right. To the right. There it is. That is the world's one and only global airlines A380. It is still absolutely mind blowing to me that you would choose to start an airline with a plane this big. I was doing a little research online and according to the Internet, this plane.

Costs $30,000 per hour to operate. And I've heard that buying a tire.

For the plane costs as much as a house. I cannot imagine the stress.

There you go.

Have a little bit tight yet.

Thank you.

Absolute pleasure to see you on the plane. This is actually so incredible to get to board an A380 from the ground and just get a true perspective of how massive it is. Look at how big this plane is and how big the engines are. Absolutely massive.

This is really fun.

Also, the vibe is totally different on an inaugural flight. Everybody is just so excited to be here. And normally like you'd be getting on really quickly and people would be yelling at you if you were trying to film and you were holding people up. But that's what everybody's doing right now. This is so how close do you.

Think I can get to the engine?

Don't get sucked into it. Be a four start.

Wow. Here we go.

So many steps. All those little dots on the.

On the leading trail edge there, that's from previous damage that we had to fix of a hail storm.

Wow.

So that's why it looks like that.

We'Re officially on board.

Hello. D2D. Yes.

I am so excited.

Excited.

Welcome to Global Airlines first class. We have a suite in the middle. It's a one to one configuration, so we get to sit together. First impressions. It's massive. And it looks like we both got two amenity kits that are little purses. I Love it.

Slippers. PJs. Our menu is waiting for us in our seats.

Yay.

Hey, Joy. Cheers to our first ever inaugural flight.

Very impressed. So far, within seconds of sitting down, I've been offered a warm towel, a bowl of seasoned peanuts, which are also warm. Bonus points. So far so good. I kind of feel like there's no rules. Like we met the guy who started the airline. Feels like majority of the plane is an influencer of some sort. I feel like I can just. We'll see what the vibe is.

Destination Jeff K. New York. And our flight, we have an approximate duration of 6 hours and 20 minutes. I'm very sad that this flight is only 6 hours and 20 minutes. But the good news is it's a daytime flight, which means that we don't have to sleep.

No sleep.

Oh, that is beautiful. 2012.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Whoa.

I think champagne might be my favorite beverage.

Love coffee. No, do we do like a cheers do. Do a fist bump.

All right.

You can only do this when you're flying with the founder of an airline.

What do you think?

I didn't think about it. Oh, you think about it.

Okay. What do you think?

Now that is a once in a lifetime moment and I'm not a caviar expert, but it is delicious.

I've only eaten caviar a handful of times and they've all been on either first class flights, first class trains, and that one time at the North Pole. So I'm no expert. However, J told me that this is his favorite caviar in the world. Roba caviar. Beautiful presentation, but especially this branded napkin Caviar, if you're doing it the right way, is served with a pearl spoon. Because any other material will inhibit the perfect taste for the caviar. Something like that. I like to start with the sour cream as my base, then all the other toppings stick to it really well.

You know what?

I was confused at why this was a double sided spoon and now I understand I could use one side of the spoon for all the toppings and the other side of the spoon, the caviar. Here we go. Bon appetit.

Wow.

James is sitting right there.

So I feel a lot of pressure.

I gotta say. I think it's the best I've ever had. I feel like it's less fishy.

I hate for your fish eggs to be fishy.

There's like good fishy and then there's like too much fishy. I think it's a great balance of fishiness. I gotta give a huge shout out to my flight attendant, Camila. I was up front talking when the caviar came out. And when got back to my seat, she brought me my warm bread and she told me that she waited until I got to my seat to bring out the bread so it didn't get cold. That is first class service. For my starter. I ordered the beetroot and goat cheese salad. Never had a goat cheese that I Didn't like, plated beautifully. By the way.

Nate got the tomato mozzarella salad, and I must say, I'm a little jealous. You want to swap? Bite.

This has somehow become a theme on this flight. Stop.

Stop.

Girls, shut your mouth. Shut your mouth. I'm not beating it, dude.

What? What do you want me to do? My mane just came out, and I felt like I was a bit far away from it. Like, I was like, I need to scoot my chair up, and I discovered these buttons. There's a fork and knife button, and when I press it, it's not like scooting me up. It's like tilting me for my mane.

The founder of the airline just downed a glass of champagne. Right?

Real quick. Normally, we interrupt these videos talking about other companies, and then those ads allow us to go have these amazing experiences that we get to share with you. But today I want to tell you about something a little more personal. It's where we spend a ton of our time behind the scenes, and it's something that we probably don't talk about enough. Daily Drop is the company that we started five years ago. It was a little side project that's now grown into a team of 17 people. And our goal is to help you. You travel more while spending less by demystifying the world of miles and points. If you've ever seen us or other people on the Internet flying business class or staying in fancy hotels using miles and points, and you thought, how the heck are they doing that? You're definitely not alone. This whole world can be really confusing. There's different credit cards. There's all these different programs that you can transfer points to. There's different rules that you have to follow. I'll admit, it can get very confusing, especially when you're first starting out. Before we left to go travel back in 2016, Kara and I had saved up close to 2 million miles in points. And we spent forever learning all the different strategies to get the maximum value out of those points. And now we've started Daily Drop to help you do the same. And this is our vision for how we're trying to make that happen. Step one. If you are completely new to miles and points, we have a free course called miles and points 101. This is going to teach you all the basics. And then we have a free daily newsletter called Daily Drop that keeps you up to date with all the best deals. And it also teaches you the easiest ways to earn a ton of points.

Points.

And last but not least, the final piece of the puzzle. Is Daily Drop Pro. These are all the tools that we wish we had when we first started using miles and points. The goal with this tool is to help you maximize the value of your points. And we do that in a few different ways. First, we make it super easy for you to find flights bookable with points. Just run one search and we search flights bookable with points on over 140 different airlines. You can also search for hotels bookable with points anywhere in the world. And we've just released a new feature that we're super excited called Points Deal Notifications. So we are constantly searching the Internet for the most high value points redemptions. And anytime we find an amazing deal, we send you a notification through the Daily Drop app. So that way you don't have to waste a ton of time searching for flights. And last but not least, if you don't have a ton of points yet, we also search millions of different flight combinations every day to find the best deals that are bookable with cash. And then anytime we find a deal that meets your travel preferences, we also send you a notification in the app. So even if you don't have a lot of points, if you are booking flights, we should be able to save you a ton of money. So let me wrap this all up. Miles and points 101 is our completely free course. Then you have the daily newsletter which is also completely free. The only thing we charge for is Daily Drop Pro and right now we are in the middle of our summer sale which means you can get $50 off. So you can get a year long membership for $99. I'll leave a link in the description below or you can scan the QR code here on the screen to grab that deal. But even if now isn't a great time for you to sign up for Pro, we would still love for you to sign up for the free newsletter to start learning. Miles and points opened up the world of travel to Karen and I years ago and we would love to pass that on to as many of you as possible. Okay, back to the flight.

First of all, show us your sleeve. This is James, our new friend. He's joining us for lunch.

What's your channel about? Normally?

So I do trip reports. I do trip reports on airlines similar to you guys, just not as good. So you guys are like absolutely the. The number one reason why I got involved in YouTube. Like you were like top inspiration, James. Seriously, I mean it.

You guys do all the time glass away from crying from hearing that.

And I've only had one and I'M already crying. So there we go. Don't let your dinner go cold. Endure your meal. I can't even shut the door now.

This class is complicated.

Oh, I know.

Don't worry.

We don't have these complications upstairs in business class. I don't have a sliding door.

See you later.

My main is basically like a deconstructed coconut curry. It's got coconut puree, lentils, chickpeas.

Yeah.

Com Road branched out to pescatarian. Got the cod with miso. This is a very generous serving of fish. The miso glaze is actually amazing. Are you ready for this?

It's the miso glaze.

Whoa.

And bok choy. Like you honestly don't even need the fish. Like just the veggies with the miso.

Yeah.

So good.

I mean, I love mine.

Well, I love that, but I would better.

Last but least. For dessert, we're having vegan chocolate avocado mousse. It has a popcorn on the side, oats and cacao nips. Very excited about this.

Sorry. From the way it was shaped, I thought maybe it was going to be a chunk of avocado covered in chocolate.

Big fan of the popcorn with the chocolate.

That's fine.

This is the craziest flight I've ever been on. We have followed James on Instagram for years and there's one thing that he does on every single flight and it's something that he calls slammer time.

I feel like my whole career has led to this moment.

Okay, guys, you guys ready?

And there we go. Good job, guys.

Wow, you.

Are so bad. Thank you for letting me join. Wow, what a day. Are you ready for this?

This is Kara having the windows are frosty.

Welcome to our first ever Global Airlines first class seat tour.

Nail this.

In my opinion, there are three essential pillars when flying first class. Number one, really good food and wine. Number two, put closing doors. And number three, a lie flat seat. Obviously. When James bought this, A380, it was rotting in the Mojave Desert in the USA, which I'm pretty sure is the largest airplane graveyard in the entire world.

We should make a video about that one day.

We should.

If anybody watches this channel that has the hookup down below.

In this plane's previous life, it was part of China Southern Airlines. And from what I understand, majority of the plane that that we see now, except for all the safety stuff that I don't understand that's underneath the plane, is pretty much the same. Like he's upgraded all the stuff that really matters. Plus he's Reupholstered the seats. But I think most other things besides the little details he's added that are like extra is the same as they were with chime southern. And that's been a super interesting part of this experience. After talking to James and Richard and just knowing what goes into starting an airline, Some hard decisions.

Can you give me an idea of like, how much things cost on airplanes? How much do the tires cost?

100, 250 grand a tire. There's 22 of them.

It's like 22 houses on the bottom of the plane.

Basically 14 emergency exit slides. 250 to 450,000 each. There's a printer in the flight deck. 60 grand.

Why?

I asked the same question.

Plus I think it would be really cool several years down the road to come back and do another first class review when this looks totally different. Like, just imagine.

The crazy thing is, I think this is the first airline ever to start with an A380. Why the A380?

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Fair enough.

So in Covid, obviously the aircraft got less love very quickly from people. So we got good deals on them, I guess. I mean, look, the attention that this gets. You see the thousands of people and we find to airports and it's a. It's a marvel of engineering. Right.

I love when Nate and I get to sit in a suite together Just because we can close the doors. It feels like we're just floating through the air in our private little.

We have a massive room.

But if we were by ourselves for some reason, which hardly ever happens, All I have to do is either book a window seat, which is one, or press this button. I don't want to see your face. Excuse me.

Oh, come back. If I'm sitting here, this is what the experience feels like. Like a wall. I can't see Cara at all Unless she's a real creep peeking over.

Let's talk about storage. You know, I'm a big storage girl. We've got a little bit of it here. There's a little shelf where I have my water bottle. I've been keeping my phone in here. Menus, etc. Underneath this we have another. Oh, very deep hole. Put other things. Two USBs, the earphone jack and the remote for the TV. There's a little storage here too. And this seat, which is pretty cool if you wanted to sit with someone.

Opens up if you want to sit with someone. Except it says no seat. I think because there's no seat belts here, you're technically not allowed to sit Here during turbulence.

This is where our tray table comes out. We have an outlet here which is always appreciated. And they've added a few little details. We have a flower right here. This one's not real, but I will show you the real ones later. And check out this lamp.

We've never had a move away or touch lamp on an airplane. And when have you.

It's removable. And if you wanted to and all the lights on the plane went out.

You could always use it as a lantern.

Never had a lantern on a plane before. I will find something to clean.

I have no doubt that Global Airlines will one day put their unique touch on this airplane. But for now, it's an old plane, but it has everything. It has the pillars, which is all that matters. They totally nailed my three pillars. Oh, the tv. So we got on board, they told us that none of the TVs are hooked up, so they don't work. However, you can scan the QR code and connect their online entertainment on whatever device that you have. And this, this is a normal thing, like Southwest or planes that don't have screens do that. But I've never been on a first class flight that already has a screen that doesn't use the screens.

The hard product with like the screens and stuff haven't been changed out. Talk to me about that decision.

If you wanted to change all of this, we wouldn't be flying this aircraft probably for another 12 or 18 months.

Really?

So it takes that long to actually get that kind of stuff done. Yeah, we could have done that and this aircraft could still be on the ground. Or we can do the overhaul that we've done and we can put the aircraft back in the sky and we can carry you guys to New York. And that's what we chose to do.

LOL has provided jammies, which I'm very excited about, and slippers, which I will go try on now. And bathroom. Even though it's the middle of the day, it's just part of the experience.

Oh, dear. I'm just gonna hit pause right here. That noise that you just heard was me turning off my mic. So this next little scene has no audio. Like none whatsoever. So the next couple minutes is going to be future me attempting to fill in what past me was trying to tell you about the bathroom. After several glasses of champagne.

Here we go.

Now I'm just gonna hit play and we'll see what happens. Here I come through the curtain. Oh, here's the bathroom. Oh, there's Nate scaring me. He was actually just getting the camera so that we can film this cute little transition where it goes from vacant to occupied. How cool is that? And now I'm like, bathroom tour. Okay, now I'm for real ready to give you a bathroom tour. I'm pretty sure I just said first I have to pee, so. Bloop. Checking to see if my mic's on. It was clearly not. What am I talking about? I really have no idea. Okay, so before we do anything, obviously I have to change into my jammies.

Boop.

Jump. Transition. I really do love these jammies. I like the color. I really like the hood. And check out the logo. The hood even has a zipper. At the time, I didn't realize this, but the hood actually zips all the way to the top.

I mean, it is slightly scary.

Now I'm going to show you some details of the bathroom, starting with the. This cup of real flowers. Oh, and there's soap and lotion. Wow. I was really into this soap and lotion. I thought they smelled really good. I just forgot that I had slippers. Going to put those on now. Branded. Now it looks like it's time for the amenity kit review. I really like the bag. I like that it has handles. Oh, the camera was being so annoying. I couldn't get it to stay on the sink. Like, it kept falling. So this is me trying to get it to stay, stay.

Stay. Okay, back to the amenity kit. Looks like a dental kit. Tissue, earplugs, a wooden brush. I could use a little hair brush. Good job. My hair was staticy, and so I put some lotion in it. Oh, and the camera just fell. This is me trying to put it back up again. Getting clearly frustrated. We've got a global airlines eye mask, socks, a metal pin. I was very excited about this. I always lose my pins or nail. Nate steals them. I couldn't get it to focus, but you know what a pen looks like. Let's see what's in this little bag. A mirror. Not sure what I was trying to accomplish here.

A perf. Oh, what is that? Wait, what was that?

What was that?

I was very impressed with this little perfume. Velvet peony. Of course. I had to test.

Smells. So yummy. And the camera just fell again. I couldn't figure out what this was for a minute, but turns out it was a roller. Like a essential oils roller thingy. And you guessed it. I am testing this on the spot. I think I just gave it a 10 out of 10. And that wraps up bathroom time with me.

Back to the audio. Party in the Front.

Cheers, y'. All.

This is so fun. Hello. Going on adventure.

This is what business class looks like.

Hey, Jay. This is great. It's so bright and cheery back here. So you have three windows.

I have three windows. This is economy. Amazing vanity kit. So what they've done is they've done business class service in the front. And this is economy service here. But they've upgraded it.

I can't argue, can I?

Really? To be fair, I shouldn't be flying economy. So socks, eye mask, toothbrush, cute little pan. Have you ever seen a pen that size? So good. And some earplugs. It's beautiful. It's really, really nice. And you can't. You can't knock it, you know. And even though the IP isn't working, I've not even needed it. I haven't even noticed the pajamas.

How good. And they have a zipper.

I mean, it is slightly scary.

Favorite and least favorite part of business class.

Least favorite part? I don't know, maybe I didn't make it to eight glasses of champagne.

I only got seven.

The best part, though is the space. Like, I mean, I'm not a small guy, you know, I'm six foot odd, so I can fully lie flat. So I've been chilling. I mean, it's great and I've still got space. In fact, no, the best bit is I paid for economy and got business.

That's the best idea.

That is a win.

Would anyone like a drink? Can I get you anything?

Yeah. Okay. Is this with vodka? I would be the worst part. The upstairs on the A380 is the sky bar, where it looks like you could just come get whatever you want whenever you want. Is that how it works?

The first flight from Glasgow didn't get glowing reviews. What is your response to that?

Because we had pretty different experiences, I guess, in many ways. So I think a lot of the reviews were more in the business class cabin. That was where things were difficult. Right? A lot of the reviews we have from the Independent Times, guys like this in economy.

Yeah. Loved it.

You're never going to get it right on day one. We know that. We knew it all along. So I think if we go back to the start, a big problem that we had at Global was setting this tone of we want to go back to the golden age of travel. And the reality is, like, it's never going to be where we want on day one. Our intentions are good. We want to keep improving and growing from here. The fact of the matter is I can sit here and I can blame Never many different people for why that flight didn't happen in terms of like catering getting on board and products getting on board. But you know, it is what it is. The reviews from the flight afterwards back home were wonderful. But at the end of the day, you know, you get a few people in the aviation space that like to kind of do your hit and runs. I'm guilty of it myself.

You were a harsh critic.

I was.

But the thing I never did was I never called out anyone individually and like anyone. You're going to make tons of mistakes along the way. We've made tons of mistakes along the way. The intentions are right.

So we said before that we definitely weren't sleeping and that is still the plan. However, we were hanging out at the Sky Bar and they told us that there was turbulence and everybody had to come back to our seats and put our seat belts on. So we figured why not see what it's like. There's only one inaugural flight experience that is really comfy. Lie flat. Obviously we've got the, this memory foam mattress actually like really good. Cute little pillow.

Just making sure they're saying good things.

Nice thick blanket branded with this beautiful shiny gold and silver. Global Airlines. Similar to my jammies. I don't need to lie down for too long cuz I will fall asleep after having several wines in the middle of the day. But I'm glad we're experienced it.

Is this the fanciest seat that we've ever flown in? No. Is this the most fun flight that we've ever been on? 100% agreed. Anything you want to say? I'll turn it over to you. You can look at the camera. This is hot ones. This camera. This camera. We only have one so it's got to be delivered to this camera.

I think what I would say is for me, everything comes back to people. You know, there's always people behind a project. There's always people behind any kind of development, any kind of business, any kind of dream that you quite literally want to put into the sky. And I think it's really important to remember all of those people and all of the work and all of the dedication and all of the, I mean quite literally the blood, sweat and tears that goes into this.

Hopefully we look back on this day and it's like, can you believe that we flew on the first plane that Global Airlines ever owned and now they're everywhere and they're a huge brand. Everybody knows, knows who they are and how cool would it be if this is like the new Emirates or The new Singapore Airlines, like the airline that everybody wants to fly.

And I think it has a chance.

It has people who really care at the top, and I think that's what's important.

I would do anything to land in New York and turn around and go right back to Manchester. This is not long enough. The people on this plane are so much fun. It was just such an unexpected part of this trip. I don't want to.

We're landing. For some reason, my teeth get really red when I drink red wine. It's not my wall. Yeah, I look better.

Much better.

I would only do this in first class.

Once again, was a pleasure to have.

You on board and enjoy New York.

Thank you very much.

Hey, seat belt fasten, please.

We ask you to please remain seated with your seat belt fast fastened until the fastened seatbelt sign is switched off and the aircraft comes to a complete stop. We survived. We survived. Thank you, James, for putting safety first.

I'm not a nervous flyer unless I'm on a tiny plane, but, you know.

A random guy we watched on Instagram started this airline and now we're flying it.

Yeah.

I can without a doubt say that is the most fun flight I've ever had across the Atlantic. I'm not sure it can ever be replicated again, but I am sorry. So grateful for this experience. Let me see the fit.

Kara might be the only one, the.

First person in the world to ever wear Global Airlines pajamas proudly through New York.

Pretty cute and getting some stairs. But I usually do. I kind of like it.

Hope you enjoyed the video. If you couldn't tell, that was one of the most fun flights of our entire life. It felt like being on a friend's private, private plane.

If that plane was an A380. And somehow watching it back made it feel even crazier.

Anyway, I'm gonna leave a lot of links in the description below with all the daily drop stuff that I talked about. I'd love for you to check those out. And I already can't wait to share next week's video with you. It's gonna be a really fun one. Lots of laughs, a real adventure, and it's a country that we've wanted to visit for a very long time. So we will see you soon.

Jarvis, you know this stuff better than me. Are they real? Flowers? No wonder they cost so bloody much.

They're in the bathroom too.

Why are they real?

Who signed off on this? I'm not even joking. It wasn't me.

Let's take a selfie.

Oh, gosh.

Here we go. That's pretty cute. This is so fun.

What'd you do?

I licked off my knife so that it didn't look like I had used it already.