Hello and welcome to a special independent travel podcast with me Simon Corder, coming to you from Glasgow Airport.

And the reason I'm here is because a new British airline is due to make its maiden flight from here.

A giant Airbus A380 plane is currently at the western end of the airport and it's in the livery of global airlines.

It's due to lift off at 11am on Thursday the 15th of May destination New York JFK and the founder, a businessman named James Asquith, has pledged to

take passengers back to the golden age of travel, reinvigorating the onboard experience with

elevated service. But is a very large aircraft flying across the Atlantic on a journey that is already very

competitive going to be just what the world needs?

Well, I've spent £778 on a ticket to find out.

That's a round-trip ticket from here at Glasgow to New York.

Coming back on Monday. Now, I mentioned that this is using the Airbus A380. The actual aircraft,

well, it's got a colourful history. It's 12 years old, originally bought to be flown by

China Southern, based in Guangzhou in the People's Republic.

Did that for a few years. Then COVID happened and it was parked in the Mojave Desert of California for a couple of years.

Now, it was then bought by Global Airlines. Wasn't their first flight, the first plane,

that one was actually an aircraft which is still on the ground at Lourdes in South West France,

waiting for some kind of miracle to bring it into the skies. And it's not actually,

officially a Global airline's flight.

This is being operated by the Maltese subsidiary of a Portuguese airline called High Fly

and tickets, if you want to buy them, for instance, for the Manchester to New York proving flight,

which is happening on the 21st of May, you can only buy them

from a travel agent based in slough. A lot of people have said, oh, this is just like Virgin

Atlantic's launch four decades ago, which of course I'm the only one who can remember that.

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