Glasgow Airport: Global Airlines takes off to New York - when is next flight, how much are tickets, can you book future departures?

The UK-based startup is scheduled to operate a flight from Glasgow Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York today (Thursday 15 May) at 11am. The flight is due in New York at 1pm. The return leg will be landing back in Glasgow on Monday.

The "special A380 flights” will be operated by Portuguese charter airline Hi Fly, which ferried the airline's superjumbo from Dresden in Germany to Beja in Portugal to allow it to undergo maintenance in January. Global's first A380 aircraft, registered as 9H-GLOBL, was greeted with a water cannon salute welcome after arriving at Glasgow Airport on Tuesday afternoon following a positioning flight from Berja.

Return ticket prices were originally set at £778 for economy, £3,700 for business, and £7,127 for first class. Its first flight to New York from Manchester Airport will also be taking off next week on Wednesday 21 May at 12:25, arriving in New York for 2:25pm. A return ticket costs £697.28 for the seven-hour flight. These are currently the only flights that passengers are able to book.

Many who are on the first flight today are posting on social media of them checking in. Josh Cahill posted on X: “Checking in for Global Airlines inaugural flight to New York - it’s happening!”.

Founder and chief executive James Asquith, who created travel company Holiday Swap, previously said he has received “thousands of emails and messages” from people keen to fly on his airline. He told PA news agency that people are “sick and tired” of the service they currently get on airlines but “we will be better”.

Asquith insisted he is not concerned by having to compete with a number of other airlines operating flights between London and New York, such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and several US-based carriers. He said: “I don’t think more flights and more carriers equals more competition. I actually just see that as more demand and supply on the route, which makes it easier to stand out if you have a better product.”

Who is James Asquith?

Asquith is a prominent social media personality with 1.1 million Instagram followers and in 2013 became the youngest person to travel to every country in the world at age 24. He was born in Sussex in 1988 with his mum working as a solicitor’s PA and his dad a pilot for British Midland.

He went to university, the London School of Economics, where he studied a BSc in Economics and set up an events business. In 2017 he told the Independent: "Initially I was living with my parents, so I saved money on rent there. I worked three jobs at one point, and I started up a student events business in my second year which turned out to be lucrative — that’s what made it happen."

After graduation, Asquith acquired a position at HSBC and simultaneously worked on his lifelong dream of visiting every country in the world. By 24, he had achieved his goal and went to Deutsche Bank as a vice president. During his travels, the idea for Holiday Swap struck him, ending his banking career to focus on travel full-time in 2018.

His first entrepreneurial company, Holiday Swap, allows you to book, host, or swap homes anywhere for $1 a night - where you spend on flights and not accommodation. He then went on to found Global Airlines in 2021. Asquith said Global Airlines is being funded by a combination of Holiday Swap Group and external investors, who he did not name. He said launching an airline has been his “ultimate dream” since he was eight years old and “got told by everyone that “it would never happen.”