Global Airlines back to storage. The A380 operator which won’t last long, if it ever takes off.

update: July 16, 2025

Today the A380 of Global is ferried from Dresden to Lourdes Tarbes airport for storage. After only two return flights with a few journalists and Youtube vloggers from the UK to New York the aircraft was ferried to Dresden. This seems the end of the airline which never started.

Once in a while a remarkable plan is advertised by a founder of a new airline. In many cases non-standard plans fail sooner or later. For many reasons. Running an airline and making a profit is very hard.

Global Airlines is one of those remarkable plans. Founder and CEO James Asquith has a plan to fly multiple Airbus A380 aircraft from London to different destinations , New York to start with.

There are very few A380 operators and that has a reason. It is a very big aircraft and expensive to operate. Still Global Airlines purchased its first 471-seat A380 registered in Malta as 9H-GLOBL. The former China Southern aircraft which was parked in Mojave, US for 16 months, was flown to Prestwick and later Dresden for maintenance. In January 2025 photos were published showing the tail of the aircraft in Global colours, while the cheatline is still original China Southern. The aircraft was supposed to fly from Dresden to Baja in Portugal at January 17 but that flight was cancelled. Beja is the homebase of HiFly, the operator of this aircraft.

Will this aircraft ever fly commercial flights for Global Airlines? Many people believe not. There are many reasons to believe Global Airlines will not be a succes. To start with, the airline does not have any slots. London Heathrow slots are very expensive and hard to buy. So London Gatwick is likely the base. Global seems to target businessmen as they write stories on Facebook about caviar, champagne, business class and first class. Global won’t be the low cost airline like Laker or PeopleExpress.

Businessmen like flexibility in their schedule like take a later or earlier flight. Impossible with Global as they own just one aircraft. While the airline writes in their website the fleet will have four A380’s there is no sign of purchase of even a second.

While Global is the owner of a second A380, registered 9H-MIP, this aircraft has been stored at Lourdes for a long time. There is no sign this aircraft will be reactivated soon.

Image the single A380 breaks down. The customers will have to be rebooked on other flights or accommodated in hotels.

The A380 is not the most fuel efficient aircraft. Newer widebody long haul aircraft are much more fuel efficient.

Norwegian once tried to compete with British Airways and US carriers on routes from London to the US. It failed. BA started new routes copying the routes of Norwegian. Competitors will lower prices to lure passengers to them and keep them away from Global.

Holiday Swapping Limited owns more than 75% of the shares of Global Airlines. This company is a small player in the market of house swaps. The owner is James Asquith.
The first commercial flight was supposed to happen in spring or summer 2024. Later that was postponed to an unknown date in 2025.

Former founder of porn website Onlyfans, Tom Stokely, is one of the directors of Global Airlines.

Maybe the A380 will be used on charter services. Like flying football fans to the United States, Mexico and Canada in 2026 for the WorldCup.