In this episode of The Flight Pod, host Michael Arron interviews Noel Philips, an award-winning aviation content creator who transitioned from IT security. Noel shares his journey from humble beginnings in Leicester to his first flight to Russia, and his global flying experiences. He also discusses the challenges of being a YouTuber, his favorite flying moments, top airports, and how he plans his adventures.
In this episode of The Flight Pod, host Michael Arron interviews Noel Philips, who left a career in IT security to become an award-winning aviation travel content creator. Noel talks about his humble roots growing up in Leicester UK to his first flight on a school trip to Russia. He delves into his unique experiences flying around the world, filming his trips, and the evolution of his YouTube channel. Noel also discusses the challenges and rewards of being a YouTuber, his favourite flying experiences, the best airports and how he plans his adventures.
The Flight Pod's Instagram www.instagram.com/theflightpoduk/
The Flight Pod Website www.theflightpod.com
Noel Philips You Tube Channel www.youtube.com/@noelphilips
Noel Philips Instagram www.instagram.com/noelphilips.official
Timeline
00:00 Introduction to Noel Philips
00:44 Noel's Early Fascination with Aviation
02:05 From Plane Spotting to YouTube
05:57 The Rise of Noel's YouTube Channel
11:24 Challenges and Rewards of Being a YouTuber
14:59 Unique Travel Experiences and Strategies
16:14 Balancing Enjoyment and Viewership
18:34 Interactions with Airlines and Fans
21:16 The Best and Worst Parts of the Job
23:25 Traveling Intensively: The Toll on Health
25:27 Incorporating Viewer Feedback
27:33 Balancing Authenticity and Professionalism
29:09 Memorable Airline Experiences
31:56 The Perfect Flying Experience
34:47 Dream Destinations
35:45 Future of Air Travel
36:43 Concorde Memories
42:22 Quickfire Airline Opinions
45:29 Closing Remarks
[00:00:00]
Welcome to The Flight Pod, exploring the lives and journeys of the most influential people in aviation and travel. I'm your host, Michael Arron, and I'm excited to welcome Noel Phillips, an award-winning aviation travel content creator known for his down to earth, relatable videos. Born in Lester, uk, Noel spent years working in IT security before turning his passion for travel and aviation into his full-time career, flying over a million miles around the world. I spoke with him about what first sparked his interest in aviation and how that journey led him from IT security to life in the skies.
I've been into aviation as long as I can remember, like everybody who's pretty much into aviation and, um, I don't really recall when it started, but it was sort of around the time that I went on a school trip back when I was 11 years old and we got taken on a school exchange [00:01:00] visit to Russia.
And. Everybody else, all the other kids at school were like, yeah, we're going to go and see another country. And I'm like, I'm going to get to fly on a plane. And that was like the only thing that I was sort of fascinated with at the time. And, um, yeah, I got on that plane over to Russia and I just recall when we landed.
Down into Moscow. Um, it was just at the end of the sort of cold war, the Soviet union had just fallen like the year before we landed at Moscow. And there was just all of these old Soviet jets covered in Cyrillic Russian writing. At the side of the runway, all just parked up. IL 62s, TU 154s, the works, all just parked up there.
And I remember seeing the registrations on the tail numbers were all CCCP, you know, because before they had their old, uh, the current registration, they were all, like, that was just so exotic. I was like, this is so cool. And I think that's really what it was that kind of that sparked that initial interest.
I was like, this is just amazing. And then it, just by looking at a piece of metal, you see in a, like, an entire. [00:02:00] Sort of culture effectively, just by seeing a piece of metal there. And that's kind of what got me into aviation. I ended up spending years doing plane spotting trips. I used to do photos and make videos and photos used to go out with my friends.
We traveled all around the UK and Europe. Eventually just plain spotting. We'd go to skip Holland and spend the day on the viewing terrace, just logging all the KLM flights you know, aviation was effectively my passion and I started going on these trips where I'd go off to Zurich for a day just to play in spot and take photos off to Paris or something to go and take photos.
And I sort of realized, I guess, as I started doing that, that this is actually quite unique. It's actually the traveling aspect itself is quite unique.
YouTube eventually became a thing and these trips that I was doing just to effectively plane spot and turned into trips just to fly on planes because I realized that you know flying on planes was what I love doing and I take these crazy trips off to various places. I remember getting a cheap flight to Singapore and back when Air France [00:03:00] brought the A380 out and I ended up going there and back in like one day just to fly there and back because I I'd never been on an A380 and there was a cheap flight and it popped up for like The hundred and fifty quid or something that popped up to fly on Air France.
So I just did it and I made a video about it just showing the flight. And Yeah, that sort of started to become more and more popular. People started watching the videos that I was making and I realized that actually people want, are interested in watching me fly around and just take flights for the enjoyment of taking the flights.
How old were you when you took your first flight? You said , you did it when on a school trip?
Yeah, I was 11. So 1992, I was 11 years old.
I'd never been on a plane in my life. You know, my family, we, and I grew up on a council estate in Leicester. We never afforded foreign holidays. The furthest, the most exotic we got was North Wales. And, we never got to travel on a plane and go to sea places. And living in Leicester, as I did, It's underneath all of the airways from London going over to the States.
So I used to sit out in the backyard and [00:04:00] see all the contrails going over the top. Just imagining where these aircraft were off to and just dreaming that one day I'd actually be on one of these planes, and then. When I was 11, I got that chance to do it. And it's sort of, it was a book really that started right there.
And then,
so you were never nervous ?
The first, yeah, I was actually the first time. So I took off and I remember we were down at Heathrow and we'd, we'd gone down. It was a British Airways 767. They're only a year old at the time. I didn't know that at the time. And I was frightened a little bit of being close to the window because I was like, I don't even know whether I'm going to enjoy it.
So I didn't want to sit near the window. I wanted to sit in the middle of the plane as far away from the window as possible. So I couldn't see what was going on outside. And I remember as we lifted off from Heathrow, I was on sort of the aisle seat on the, on the middle section. And I remember as we'd started to lift off, I thought, so I'm going to see, look out the window and I looked over to the window and the ground was on like an angle across the window like that.
It freaked me the heck out, honestly. And [00:05:00] I was. I hated it, hated it, hated it, hated it. And then about an hour into the flight, my friends would have been over on the windows, I'll come and have a look and see out of the window. And I remember going over there and I was like, I tentatively approached it.
And then we were over the Netherlands and I just remember seeing Amsterdam down below and like the coast and like all the canals of Amsterdam just laid out in front of us. I was like, Oh my goodness. That's incredible. That's an entire city that we can see
and they, they invited us up to the flight deck because obviously back then you could do that. And, um, I remember going up to the flight deck and they were showing us all the, like the instrumentation and stuff. And they gave us a little signed postcard from the crew and everything. And it was just, everything was like, this is just such an amazing experience.
And then we got to Russia and then I spent the 10 days that we were there just looking forward to getting on the next plane home because I was going to So you get to ride on another flight,
really remember much of holidays as a child, apart from the flights.
The flights, yeah, that's the exciting bit,
isn't it, really? The
rest of it is just
sitting
around. So you mentioned about like posting [00:06:00] videos I guess you saw a niche at the time, cause you got involved in that pretty early of starting to put content online.
So what happened was that so I was on a, I was on a web forum called airliners.
net and that's still going today. It's like there were this forums and things. It's not the same as it was. There was an entire community back then. This is early to mid 2000s. There was an entire community. And I've still got many of my friends today. Actually, I met through airliners back in the day.
And this is how this place was. And they've got a forum on there for trip reports. People could write trip reports and post about when they were traveling to these places. And I used to sit and enjoy reading them because You know as a sort of a young adult I was starting my first job and everything.
I didn't really get The ability to travel that often, , I couldn't afford to just take a flight somewhere I maybe took three or four flights a year if I was lucky And reading through these trip reports gave me a way to experience that travel just by reading them And I remember, even the greats like sam chui Who nowadays [00:07:00] is a massive youtuber and probably the biggest aviation youtuber in the world He started off writing trip reports on airline.
Isn't that and you know I was reading his reports of flying on Darlow Airlines IL 62s across Africa and things like that, and you're like, wow, that's incredible. And seeing photos of out of the window landing in like Djibouti and places like that. Just amazing. So I used to read these reports Have that longing for travel based on the reports.
And then when I'd been on a trip, I used to write these reports as well to pull them on and mine were nowhere near as exotic. It was like air 2002 Faro or something like that. It was one of my first ones I did. And I'd just write loads of photos and I wrote about it, posted it on there. And that was my sort of way then of looking back at that and going.
I'm remembering that flight that I've taken. That was an amazing experience flying on that plane. And I can actually look back and read all that. I think we're talking sort of 2003, 2004, that sort of timescale. And then I remember seeing a few popped up and they've got videos [00:08:00] integrated in them and they were like, Oh, yeah, here's a video of the takeoff from the plane.
And they started linking to this new website that had come out called YouTube. I think that was like sort of 2006 or something. It was quite a way back and yeah, I'd watch them on there. And then. I was like, I don't know whether I should start making videos and putting them on this YouTube.
But then I'm not cool enough because back then it was all the cool kids had YouTube. It was like Snapchat today or TikTok. I just felt so out of touch with it. And I thought, oh, well, I might, you know, start putting a few videos on there. They might spice up the report a bit. If I can show an actual takeoff from the flight that I was on.
And I uploaded my takeoffs and landings onto YouTube and embedded them into the airliners that. And I think I remember looking at my two or three years later, I just remember logging onto YouTube and it said, I've got like 1700 subscribers or something on YouTube. I was like, how on earth has this happened?
Who is watching these videos of me just like out of the plain window? And, um, Yeah, I sort of had a brain. I thought, you know what? I [00:09:00] wonder if I could start posting this sort of stuff more often. And again, it went on for years of just videos out of plane windows. That was all I did. I branded myself as in flight video back then and posted, and it got to the point where I was posting these full flight videos out of airplane windows, because that was the new sort of trip report that I was making, and I don't know why anybody watched any of that stuff, man.
It was just ridiculous, but people did. And it grew to quite a size. Eventually I did this trip and I got this idea. I wanted to make the world's longest flight video on YouTube and Qantas had just announced they were starting their direct flights from London to Perth. And I was like, right, if I get on the inaugural, I can be the first person to ever do an entire video out of the window of this flight. Then I thought, well, coming back, I could do the Qatar airways longest flight, which was at the time as well, that was Auckland to Doha. So I might as well link that in and do that video as well while I'm down there, you know, and then a few days out from going, my wife said to me, she goes, well, you want to make a video like showing you doing this trip.
I said to her, don't be ridiculous. [00:10:00] Nobody wants to see my face. Like on a plane they don't watch me for my face. They watch me for the aviation stuff They're not interested in seeing me. She's like we should just do it. Anyway, so okay worst video ever made. It's absolutely dreadful quality I just filmed it on my iphone, you know, I was like phoning my face like this the whole flight And, um, got home, chucked a video together.
I thought, well, I'll stick it together because we were going on holiday. I stuck a video together, chucked it out. So it released while I was on holiday, thought no more of it. And then I started getting so many messages and comments through and I'm like, what's going on. And it had gone viral in the time that I chucked it on.
And I was like, this is such a terrible video and it had gone viral. I looked at it and I thought, People are actually watching my face and this is doing better than any video that I've ever made before. Just out of the plane video. So maybe, maybe people do want to see me traveling and doing these crazy trips.
And that was sort of where it started. I made another video. I went off, I think it was Kazakhstan or somewhere and did [00:11:00] something similar over there. And. Again, people watched it and then , I went to Ukraine. That was it. And I flew on the old Antonov 24s over there. And again, people were watching it and it just started to become this thing where more and more people were watching my face and the rest is history, as you say, really sort of taking me to where I am now.
Yeah. I
It's a great medium for being able to see that and understand it. Uh, you know, personally, I've, I've done a lot of business class flights and various different flights around the world.
I still find the kind of content of these videos, , fascinating and interesting.
I think that's
the
thing
slightly addictive.
Yeah, people message me all the time and even still even in this age of youtube where people can get any video They want on demand, people could watch whatever they want pretty much on youtube And yet that basic thing that people have is I want to be able to travel somewhere and I can't For whatever reason or I want to see what it's like flying on this island But I don't want to go to Turkmenistan or somewhere like that.
I just want to watch [00:12:00] somebody else do it and I get so many messages constantly from people saying, how they're able to live vicariously through watching my videos. I didn't even know what that word meant until people started to email that in. And it's people literally enjoy watching them just because they're seeing somebody else do it.
And I see that personally as a win win because I get to actually do it. You know, I'm sort of living this dream, this crazy dream of flying around the world, seeing these random places. And. Equally making videos of that is allowing other people to experience that dream for themselves. And it just is strange, like how the videos that I'm making are having that sort of impact on people.
And I've never thought of myself as the sort of person that we're able to do something like that.
There's kind of like the whole thing of that initial thing of getting over the confidence to do it and suddenly start speaking when you are filming and speaking when you've got the passengers around you, other people around you.
I am not a public person. I hate speaking in public. I've, I always did. I, you know, my old job, I worked in it and one of the big [00:13:00] things I had to do was stand up in front of a room of people and sell a piece of software or, training and I hated it. I was so nervous. That was like. I'm just going to get this over with as soon as possible. I'm going to read from a script and I absolutely hated being in front of people and to get over that initial sort of fear of putting myself on camera was really, really hard at the beginning. And it still is too.
It can be, it can be now as well, but back then it was just crazy because I'm not the sort of person to put myself in front of people, especially if you're standing in an airport or something like that. And you're trying, you've got your camera up, trying to talk to a camera. Over time, I started to realize, , doing this, that actually nobody gives a monkeys about what anybody else is doing.
Nobody's paying attention to you. I saw some YouTube videos of people doing these really crazy things, like just going and laying down in the middle of an airport or something, and people just walk around them, just things like that. And you're like, actually, Nobody cares,
Certainly nowadays.
Certainly nowadays. Yeah, exactly. And if it was even back then it was to a degree. Um, but that back [00:14:00] then I was a lot more like keeping my camera closed.
Nobody noticed. You can look in the background of the videos. People don't even see you. Um, every now and then I'll be when I edit the videos, I'll see somebody in the background, just like putting the fingers up or like waving or something in the background, but most of the time, people don't care. And I think that's the biggest learning curve of this is that actually people just see you filming and talking to yourself, then they're not really bothered, I think as human beings, we tend to have this complex that we are living in our own world, and what we are doing, everybody's interested in, but in reality, people don't care. And I think getting into that, Mentality kind of helps you open up a little bit.
It's still tricky. I find depending on where you go in the world, obviously, there's some places you go and you can get in a lot of trouble for filming and stuff. So I still kind of have to have those moments where I'm a little bit more discreet and a little bit more trying to hide away, but for the most part, I find it easier to just do it and ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission
What were your decisions, , on where and how to travel
What I [00:15:00] like to do Is to try and find the most offbeat and track things possible, you know, i'm not somebody who is Wanting to fly though. I mean i'd like to I mean now i'm getting to this age now I'd like to be able to travel the world in business class and just make flights showing reviews of emirates and qatar airways I don't think that's going to happen because to be honest The, the interesting stuff is still where I keep getting drawn to.
I've just come back from Australia a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, I need to get there in the most interesting way possible. How can we do this in a way that it's not only exciting for me. So I'm not just sitting on one plane.
I'm, I could just write Qantas down to Australia, or I could go and take many Stan airlines across to Bangkok. And I could nip across to Myanmar and do something there. I could fly on. The Chinese built plane on the way down. And I started to come up with a bit of a route that incorporates these elements, try and patch it together with other elements.
For instance the AirAsia thing that I've just released this week, I, I could have just took a taxi [00:16:00]across Singapore, but then I thought, you know what, I could actually do something really cool and just fly from one side of Singapore to the other
Is your main focus, Something that will get views versus something that you want to do and enjoy and experience yourself
The things I want to do and the things i'm going to find enjoyable I'll always try and get them in there because otherwise, you know, that's You know, that's the thing something I want to do might not be something that other people want to watch and that's fine I'm, , i'm okay with that because i've still had a good time doing it, you know An example of that We went over the grand canyon and it's been a dream of mine for so many years to fly over the grand canyon And we got offered the chance to fly on a cessna caravan over there And they let us rig cameras up to the outside of the plane and everything made an amazing video Nobody watched it because, let's face it, people aren't watching my videos to watch me enjoy myself.
They're watching the videos to get something for themselves. And I'm okay with that. I had a fantastic time. But then you do have to sort of balance it out with the fact I can't make every video like that because otherwise, you know, we'd have no channel if that was the case and, you know, I [00:17:00]look for things typically that are going to make more of a more interesting video, let's say, um, For instance, you know between frankfurt and bangkok this last flight that i've done on this last trip Turkmenistan was the obvious option to try and get a flight on them I've kind of done like there was my at mongolia and i've done them before I could potentially do a video on their 787.
That's something that's coming up soon But actually at this moment in time we can get on turkmenistan airlines That's the most interesting option that people are going to want to watch so we'll film that and then from bangkok It's like okay. Well, how do we get down to singapore from? Bangkok, and of course you've got your Thai Airways Dreamliner.
You've got your Malaysia Airlines 737 MAX 8, things like that. And yeah, that's okay. But like, who's interested in that really? The most interesting option on that flight ended up being Myanmar Airways. So it was like, take a connecting flight through Yangon down to Singapore. And we'll do that. And that's kind of how the whole thing works, really.
[00:18:00] And the aim of that was I had to get down to, um, Joe or Baru to take this, um, Comac flight across to Jakarta. So effectively I had to get to Singapore one way or another. And that was my way of doing that was to just. Let's do things that are interesting. Let's do airlines that people haven't heard of.
Let's go through places that might make a more entertaining videos. Who knows what's going to happen in Ashgabat airport when you get there, right? I don't know what's going to happen. So that's going to make a more compelling story for people to watch. And yeah, . Over time, it's become more of a focus, I think, of just trying to get to those places that have the potential to have something interesting happen,
Going back to the earlier question with regards, like, filming, how do you find airline stuff, uh, and the airlines, do you pre prepare them, are you okay with me filming? How much preparation kind of goes into that?
Typically, I would say typically not much preparation. I don't contact the airlines in advance. For example, I don't typically let the cabin crew know when I'm about to film on a flight because look, at the end of the day, that's only going to go one of two [00:19:00] ways. And if they say no, well, then I can't film anything, you know, so my, my idea is just to be as discreet as possible, not to film the crew as much as possible.
And sometimes the crew will come up and they'll be like, Oh, you YouTube. Oh, great. And start talking. And then we fight and then we'll start chatting about that. That can open up doors and that can get them showing me around different parts of the plane that I probably wouldn't get to see ordinarily.
They might bring an extra set of like an extra meal or something as hard. Try this, try that. And you know, we might have that whole rapport going on. Nine times out of ten. I tend to not mention it to them before I start because it makes you sound like you're after something.
I'm filming a video about your airline. It makes it almost sound like you're asking for them to give you special treatment, but also depending on the Airline, it can be kind of more tricky after that. Do you know what I mean? So it's just let's be discreet and to be honest most of the time people don't even notice that i'm filming I don't film the crew.
I try my hardest not to film all the passengers, you know It's just me on a plane and that's what i'm [00:20:00] trying to show So, yeah, do
you do you find? Uh as you've done more and more content Kind of getting recognized. Is
that a good thing or? Yeah,, to be honest, I've only ever had positive experiences from people who've spotted me on planes and they're like, Oh, I love your videos.
And then, they might. You know, I was on Jetstar. I did this round the world flight on Jetstar and there's not much they can do to make my Jetstar flight better. Let's be honest, it's a pretty crap airline to fly on, but they're like, Oh, we we've given you free entertainment on this flight. So they opened up the IFE for me, which you normally have to pay for.
And they brought me some free snacks and things like that. You know, I don't ask for any of that. I don't expect any of that. You know, it's like, it's not part of what I do, but it's nice when that happens. And people actually come. You know, the half crew come up to me and sit next to me for like hours. It seems sometimes talking about the videos i've done like we are now and Chatting about things like that.
It is quite nice. Depends where you go in the world really like I think European airlines, a lot of the time I will get recognized Australian [00:21:00] airlines. I don't know, for some reason, I haven't done a lot in Australia, but everybody in Australia seems to know me and I'll walk through an airport and get stopped four times by either airline crew or passengers or something like that.
It's crazy. It's always quite nice when that happens. It's a nice surprise.
What are the best parts of. Being a youtuber.
Well, the best part is that I get to go where I want to go when I want to go there I can just say right there's a new airline flying somewhere. I've got an excuse now.
I can go make a video on them I don't know. I want to go to Random country in africa and go and fly around there for a bit Well, I can do that. And I think having that freedom for me is the best part of what I do. Because even when I worked in IT and I used to travel around, obviously, there's only so many restrictions.
I did used to push the sort of boundaries a little bit when I worked in IT and I'd, I'd find like the most random way of flying between one job and another job, just because I could, you know, and I remember the, I think I remember the worst one I did. I did a job [00:22:00] in, um, Kent and then I had a job the next day in Birmingham.
So I ended up flying across from London city across to Antwerp on the Fokker 50. Then I took a train up to Amsterdam and then I got the Sukhoi superjet, it was city jet when they were flying them back in the day, back to Birmingham.
I
was like, okay. And I remember sitting there, I was like, it's a travel day.
And I'm traveling between one job and another. I, I, that was taking the mick a bit. I think that was kind of the worst that I got.
But now I
can do, I can, I can do that. And it's just
put on my plate. Absolutely. What's the worst aspects of what you do?
I think, you know what? The worst aspect is that.
I never stop and literally there is no I mean, you know this you're a business owner yourself When you run your own business, it doesn't matter what you do. You just don't stop There is no let's clock off at five and go home and watch a movie tonight. That doesn't happen. I'm always checking emails.
I'm always checking comments. I'm always sitting there at half 10 at night thinking crap. I need to schedule a video this week, or I need to [00:23:00] upload this bit here. And I haven't requested the captions on this and I haven't ordered a thumbnail for this. And there's always something. And I think that's, that is the sort of.
I wouldn't say it's the hardest, but it's not hard. It's still, it's still what I love doing. But just that fact that there is no sort of off switch, like you'd get just working a nine to five job, you know, sometimes I kind of long for that, but then I sort of think, well, actually, I think the benefits of this far outweigh anything.
Yeah.
What was the most flights that you've done in a year?
Um, I think the most i've done is like 150 or something like that and that was ironically that was in 2020 Wow I got to the end of the year and everyone's like, oh, yeah, you know We've had like getting google and sent me a notification saying oh this here's your travel history for this year or something You know how it does And it said oh you may have traveled less this year due to travel restrictions and I was like actually More this year than every other that's not quite bad about that.
But um, yeah, that was um, but [00:24:00] yeah But it does take its toll on you. I have to say I mean like The time off between the trips is generally quite good I get I'll do typically when i'm flying i'll do a two or three week trip and then i'll be home for two or three months That's kind of how it goes. Cause then the content that I've filmed sort of gets dripped, drip fed out effectively.
But sometimes on those trips, it is crazy. I mean, this last one I did was tough because the first, I think the first three days I left here on the Friday from Texas, and I didn't sleep then until the Sunday night in Myanmar. So I'd done effectively two overnight flights back to back I did I went I went down to Cancun I took an overnight concord and the condor flight concord.
That'd be cool an overnight condor flight over to frankfurt Literally connected and onto the on overnight flight on tokmenistan across to bangkok. So I didn't sleep for like three days And just literally, you know when you get to the point where you can't even [00:25:00] remember what's happened I don't remember how I got from the airport to the hotel in my armar.
I was that exhausted And i'm getting older. I'm 43 and I'm not getting any younger, that's the thing, and the more I do this, the more I'm like, okay. My body at some point is going to give out and not let me do this anymore.
So I guess I have to sort of enjoy this while I can. And every last minute of me getting to fly on planes and do this is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to enjoy as much as I can.
Absolutely. How do you incorporate the feedback from your viewers to enhance your content
to be honest, it depends on the feedback I get. Um, The thing, I mean, I speak with a lot of other YouTubers as well, who do the similar sorts of things.
And we all sort of have a similar opinion of this. If you get one comment saying, change this about your content, or one person regularly saying, change this same thing about your content, that's generally one that you'll ignore. But then if you start getting several people, or more people asking for that, then it's time to start looking, okay, let's, [00:26:00] this is what people are after.
But you kind of have to balance that up with being myself as well. And I get so many people saying things like, oh, I hate the Lou Review that you do, because I do the Lou Review every video. And actually, to be honest, the reason I make such a big deal of it is because I had one perpetual fan, what they say, fan, it was, it was a commenter that for a very long time, I hate the Lou Review.
It's the why do you even do this? And I was like, okay, let's make cut it. What I normally do, let's, let's make a big thing out of this. And I made a little animation and everything for it. That's great. And that's why it is what it is because of this one guy. It just like annoyed me so much asking for the same thing.
But yeah, generally, yeah, it's few things I've done that have kind of come as a result of what people have asked me to do. Like things like my audio set of people got fed up with me holding my microphone up to my mouth all the time. And I was like, okay. And eventually it got to so many people. I was just like, okay, let's just get a different mic set up, for example.
But then, like I say, there's other things that just. [00:27:00] That that's who I am and I can't change certain things, things that I say, I've had a lot of American people say, no, you need to stop using British words now you live in America. And it's like, no, cause that's who I am, you know, I'm not going to like just change the way I talk for people.
I'm not going to change my voice or anything like that because people don't like this. People say, you know, you, you should rest smartly when you fly in business class, you should be wearing very smart clothes and a shirt and things. And it's fine. No, because that's not who I am. Right. Are you paying for it?
You can wear what you want. Exactly. So, um, yeah, there is the, yeah, that's, that's the thing really is I, I, I listen to what people say. I take it on board. Always, you know, people have suggestions for me of the way that they want me to do the videos. Of course I take that on board that I won't necessarily do that because a lot of the time I feel that these things are just going to change this particular Kind of way that I, the way that I am and it will feel too false.
You know, if I'm sitting there talking in a certain way, [00:28:00] that's not me or if I'm, you know. it's not who I am and that's the thing I try and pride myself on being who I am. If you don't like me, well, that's fine. Go and watch somebody else. But if, you know, I am, I am me. So,
yeah, well, that's what kind of makes you unique your particular style and you're very honest.
Try to be, yeah, I try to be, and you know, okay, that's fine. If you want a professionally done video showing like fancy shots and everything like that, well, this, you know, go and watch Sam Chui, for example, he does it right like that. And he does it professionally, fair play to him.
People enjoy watching that. But for me, I am, you know, this is, this is me. I'm not going to, I'm going to try and change my camera style, make it more professional as I go on, but I've tried it before. I mean, I've done videos before. I've tried to make it look really swanky and professional and they just tank.
Nobody's interested because they don't want, they don't want to see that polished look. They want to see the rough ass look as my father in law would say.
They want to see Noel flying on the most dangerous airline in the most [00:29:00] dangerous part of the world. There's plenty left. There's plenty left. You've had the chance to experience also the best service from the world's airlines.
What stands out, , the most from each airline? , and what about the worst?
Um, yeah. Okay. So There's, I think when it comes to flying in business class, you don't tend to have many that aren't that great, you know, even the sort of more sketchy airlines are generally a business class is decent, but there have been a few that I've taken that have been really amazing flights.
I mean, Singapore Airlines, I flew their first class suite, um, that was just something else. You've got an actual separate bed and a set, a bed and a chair, are there in a massive TV and everything that whole thing. All experience was brilliant. Um, one thing I, one I did do recently was Myanmar airways.
And that's something that really surprised me because if you fly business class on Myanmar airways, you get to Yangon airport and they've got an entire separate process for getting you on the plane. You don't even have to go into the main [00:30:00] airport. You have a lounge where they, you basically give them your passport.
They check you in like a private jet, you know, you give them your passport. They check you in. They deal with the immigration formalities. You go through a private security point. You go straight up to a lounge. You never have to actually go in the main airport. And, that's really surprised me.
I don't know why I wasn't expecting that for a country that's in the middle of a civil war. I wasn't expecting that they'd have this sort of setup going on. , and then in terms of the worst, I mean, yeah, I've had some, I've had some flights that have been pretty ropey. I think, um, some of the African carriers can be a little bit like that, especially if you go off on the old turbo props and things hopping across Africa, you're not expecting Emirates, are you, when you're flying across from Dar es Salaam to like Kisumu or somewhere in Africa, you're not expecting that, that sort of high level of service as much as you would.
But, um, some of those flights have been a little bit sort of sketchy. Um, the tech minister on one I did recently was just crazy. The first time I've ever taken a flight where [00:31:00] passengers have been up. Standing up in the aisles drinking as the plane's been taking off. Like what? You have never seen that in all of the flights i've ever done.
I
saw that that was very interesting. Drew didn't seem to care
Well, they were they don't care. They cared about me They didn't want me taking photos, but they're more than happy to be standing up With other passengers drinking in the aisles during takeoff brilliant. Yeah, I love it the same priorities
some of the uh, some of the places you go in the world where uh, you're taxiing and You It seems to be more customary to just stand up and grab your bags while the plane is still Everyone just stands up and starts
walking down the aisle.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that happens a lot. It happens a lot in the, um, Eastern European countries. Like when you go out towards the former Soviet countries, I mean, not, not Poland and stuff, but you go across to sort of Russia and Kazakhstan and places that happens a fair bit down there. And, you know, it's just normal.
Yeah. The plane lands, they round of applause and they'll get up and start grabbing their luggage.
Could you name three things that would create the [00:32:00] perfect flying experience in your opinion?
Um, for me, the biggest thing is the airport experience.
That is something that I have had, um, I've had some experiences where I've been through airports and it's been just phenomenal. And I think we were talking a little bit earlier on about the whole way of flying through FBOs and the private flying thing where you just literally rock up and it's nice and easy and you're straight out onto the aircraft.
That sort of experience, so the ground experience really. Cutting that down to the minimal time possible Making it as nice as possible going through and making you feel sort of different And that's I guess why I said about the myanmar airways flight as well because I guess that's a similar thing You know, you don't actually have to go through the hustle and bustle of the main terminal.
So that's one thing I think The cabin crew on the flight can make a massive difference as well. The way that they, um, handle you as you get on the flight. Like I've had flights where you welcomed on board by a cabin crew and they literally take you to your [00:33:00] seats and load your bag into the overhead locker and things, you know, it's just, it's nice.
It's fluffy stuff, isn't it? But it's, it's something like that. And you just, that just gives you, you know, the flight itself might be terrible, but that service you've had just makes you remember that flight.
It's what, what is to yourself, though, more important. I,
um, I personally, the hard product is what gives me the biggest thing and the biggest impression of an airline then. And I've flown on airlines where the service might be pretty crap and pretty dreadful, but the seats that you're sitting in might more than make up for it.
, I flown on nice Uganda airlines. For example, their service on board is pretty mediocre, but their hard product is fantastic. And they've got a three 30 Neos with these amazing business class seats, amazing bedding, the, um, even the food that they bring you, the actual. Like the crockery and stuff's like just beautiful, you know, it's all presented so nicely.
Um, so [00:34:00] yeah, I guess that's sort of that hard product side. I mean, the food is kind of more of a soft product, isn't it? I guess I still get those mixed up, but the actual seat and everything itself is a big thing for me. And, um, A lot of people give me grief because I say, well, the American carriers know what they're doing when it comes to business class on flights.
I was like, but they're American. They're dreadful. You know, it's dreadful service. Like, but no, you fly on the United. Okay. You fly domestically and economy on United. It's pretty dire. But if you fly on their Polaris suite, for example, you get in really nice, like fluffy bedding. You get an amazing seat, a great entertainment system.
And I think people's all often, often look past that. And they see the grumpy cabin attendant who's throwing the food at them. And they're like, okay, you know that. That's another story, but the hard product itself, you can't deny it's pretty decent on those sorts of airlines.
Three places that you still want to go to
Absolutely. Antarctica. That's on my list. It's the only continent i've not been to so that's there north korea Um another one. I really want to go because they still fly some really cool old [00:35:00] soviet planes Kind of a bit of an issue because we're on american visas. So that's kind of And, um, another one along the lines of North Korea in terms of getting visas and stuff is, um, Venezuela.
I want to go there and fly around. Cause if, again, some really cool old planes and it's just a country that not many people get to visit. And I guess those three countries, well, Antarctica is not really a country, is it, but it's more of a continent. But you know, that's there that, yeah, those, those three places, I think I'm desperate to get to them.
Two of them, I don't think are ever going to happen, sadly. Antarctica might not happen, but it depends. You've got to pay an absolute fortune to get there. That's the only issue with that one. So
More and more options appearing, uh, by the day. So you don't know, uh, here's one, here's one that may be more realistic.
Would you be brave enough to review Virgin galactic?
Absolutely. I, uh, you know, and I'm hoping that in my lifetime, it gets to a point where it's affordable enough that I can do that. I never got to fly on Concord.
Because it was just one of those [00:36:00] things. It was so far out of anybody's budget to ever be able to take a flight on Concorde. And now I'm at the point I'm like, well, if it was even like with inflation, the same price that it was back then, you know, I would find a way to be able to do that because it's something I want to do.
And I think Virgin Galactic is something very similar to that at the minute, you know, and I'm hoping that at some point in my lifetime, it becomes cheap enough. That it might still be a bit of a stretch, but it's enough of a stretch that I can just justify doing it. You know,
I'm sure if they, if they said, you know, we'll comp you on that one.
I'm sure that'd be one. Oh yeah, I'm there.
Totally. Absolutely. Totally. Just put a word for me with Richard Branson, if you meet him at some point. We shall, we shall, we shall see. We
shall see.
Uh, I was lucky to experience Concord. So just to
you've got to tell people you can't do that. You can't fly on Concord and then not tell everybody that you've flown on Concord.
It's influenced everything as part of everything that I'm kind of working on as well, because, um, and it was, it was, uh, [00:37:00] an unusual, it was actually a competition.
So it was, I don't know whether you remember, but when they celebrated 10 years as a PLC. Um, they gave away 100 seats for 10. It was like a four page advert in the Daily Mail. It was kind of like early mobile phone
days. I do remember that. I do remember that. It was probably one of those where you thought like,
you know, who's, no one's going to win that.
And I think, uh, my parents at the time, they had, uh, they did have mobile phones, like big bricks. And they were ringing and it was just, just engaged the whole time. And I rung from the house phone, and It's um, it rung, but it just, but it didn't get answered. And like 45 minutes later, they're saying, put it down.
You know, you're wasting your time. And then all of a sudden a lady answered and it was like, hello, British Airways. And I was like, um, I'm ringing about the cotton. She's like, yeah, when do you, when do you want to go? , so I had to book it.
It was Valentine's day. That weekend I thought and I just started going out with who my wife now Um, this is going back over 20 years ago And um, I thought I can't just [00:38:00] sort of dump it so I had to book it and I booked it the following weekend And we did, uh, we, we flew return to JFK from Heath Road. Oh,
wow.
So it wasn't just like a sightseeing flight with the Bay of bk. It was a proper full on flight.
It was a full thing. And that's, and I'll, I'll possibly elaborate maybe another time on the, the full full, because there is more of that story. But from, just from a Concord point of view, you know, for me that kind of stayed with me.
I mean, I was, I was too young to probably appreciate it from the, the catering side and, and the actual plane. Right. I mean, obviously the, the plane is very small. Um, but people would, you know, would pay money for the luxury of being able to get, um, get there in half the time, you know, really. They put up with the small thing, but the service was spectacular.
It was because it was a smaller aircraft. The crew were able to be more personable with, the , passengers, uh, that get to know them, that know them by name, that know what they wanted to drink, what they wanted to eat. And kind of a lot of this has been kind of crafted into the things that I'm kind of working on.
That [00:39:00] if you can make the experience of getting even to, you know, short destinations, Malaga, Parma, from Manchester, and you technically can, you know, I, I, I coin it almost like we're like the supersonic airline that's not supersonic air, you know, by the fact that, um, just that beginning and end bit where you're going through the terminals and going through the airports, that's where you're losing all that time.
Um, and as you say, it was your, your number one that kind of going through the airports is pretty, pretty key to try and make that experience as good as, as, because you have to endure it. So, yes. Make it as good as possible. Yeah. So kind of like that's being weaved into the fact that I just, um, you know, I obviously experienced that for a reason.
Uh, we can't be supersonic yet. Maybe you'll get to experience boom.
Yeah.
Hopefully
it doesn't go boom. Not the best name. It's not the best
name. And it's, you don't really want to have to explain to people that it's not to do with that, but it's to do with the noise. It's kind of like, uh, I've thought that myself.
Um, yeah. So. [00:40:00] Uh, maybe another day. I'll, uh, certainly I've got, I've actually got a friend of mine that, uh, I did my ATPLs with who, uh, lives not far from you. So, yeah. So he moved, he moved to Texas. Um, he was crew for Emirates, um, and him and his wife now moved there and, uh, he's actually, he's doing instructing.
Um, right at the goal of, you know, getting a FAA license as well. So he's nearly there. Um, nice. Yeah. So
that's a nice part of the world to be in, I have to say for flying as well. You can't really beat it. It's, um, you know, decent weather. It's hot, it's hot and sticky. But other than that, it's, it's lovely. It looks very nice.
Whenever,
whenever I speak to me, it looks very nice compared to here. I'm in sunny Manchester. Have you actually been to on the Concorde experience in Manchester or any of the others?
I've been to the i've been the one in duxford. Oh, it's actually I have been the one in manchester Yeah, because we did an event there and we got to see them on on the actual concord there um But yeah, it's like you say, it's such a small aircraft and [00:41:00] that you just have this vision that it's like a 330 or something and you get on it's like a regional chair so tiny and you know, I guess the thing is, as well, I mean, everybody, obviously the whole flying in three hours to New York is the kind of pull of it, but you're looking at it and you're like, these seats are like Dreadful if I got served that seat on a plane nowadays, it would be like I would not want to be doing that There's
no leg room.
It's a no, it's very narrow. Um, yeah, but from the exterior it still Awes me. Oh, it's beautiful. Isn't it? Such a lovely aircraft to believe that I miss it, you know sixes technology, right? Amazing absolutely amazing because it still looks like you know when you see in a hangar It's it's sad because it looks like something that's you know, this this is what's coming You
Right.
It's like a futuristic design even now. Yeah. You know? So amazing. It's so sad that it ended the way it did and Yeah. And that nobody went for it. That's the other thing. Like it was positive Virgin in the way of it, you know, Virgin tried it. Yeah. [00:42:00] Um, but it's
ahead of it, ahead of its time. I think, uh, I think we will get, I think they've worked out that since, since kind of Concord flights have only got slower anywhere in the world.
Yeah. So like, um, it's all about economies. Yeah. And fuel burn, which is pretty important but, um, just, um, sort of like trying to tie it up for you. Um, I appreciate your time. Um, I've got a couple of, couple of things that probably sound like a customer survey, but I'll, uh, I'm just going to name some airlines and just, uh, say the first thing that comes to mind.
So EasyJet.
EasyJet, they are, you know, they're a decent airline and they are not as crap as people say they are, they're pretty decent. I think, sorry, you said the first thing and I'm going to ramble on and rant on about this now, but EasyJet basically, they started off as a low cost airline but now everybody else has come down to their level, so EasyJet are actually pretty decent.
Yeah, I would agree, I would agree. I don't think they're the airline that they started off where [00:43:00]you'd fight for your seat and And there are, there are really no such thing as low cost carriers really in the sense because by the time you've added everything on it's still pretty expensive flying around Europe.
Yeah.
British Airways.
They've gone downhill. I have to say they've gone downhill. I used to love british airways maybe from more of a patriotism point of view because i'm british the more I travel around the world the more i'm like The more I have to deal with british airways on the phone line and stuff.
It's just like yeah they yeah, um, I mean, you know, the worst thing is things like You buy a business class ticket and you don't get to choose your seat It sounds like sort of stupid, and it is a stupid thing, but every other airline in the world offers that, you know, even so called low cost airlines, you buy their premium ticket, you get to choose the seat, and there's BA, no, we're not, we're going to make you shop A for your seat, so yeah.
Well, it's kind of like, I think, legacy software, and that's something to be said for, so. And again, you won't, you won't, you wouldn't [00:44:00] experience that with us in the future. So it's all being incorporated and from your IT side of it, we'll ask your input as well. So,
uh, don't ask me flipping. I wasn't any good to take when I worked in IT alone now.
And, uh, and finally Singapore airlines.
They are good. They, uh, depends on the aircraft that you fly on with them. Some of their planes aren't as good as others, but they're, they're, they're good. They have a product that's very sort of consistent. Let's say consistency is a thing with them. It's always, you always get the same, but not necessarily the best airline in the world, but they are the most consistently decent airline, I would say.
Cool. Um, your favorite aircraft apart from Concorde?
Uh, A380 or A350, one of those two.
Yeah. I haven't experienced A350, have done many flights, A380.
I'd say the A380 is nicer to ride on as a passenger. The A350 is amazing to look at as somebody from the outside. It's just such [00:45:00] a beautiful aircraft.
Honestly, there's not many aircraft these days that you would say stand out. I think the A350 does. It just looks incredible.
And your favourite airport?
Favourite airport? Probably Doha, actually. That's a nice one. Um, the fact that you can, you know, they've got like the whole spa thing going on there. So you can go and, you know, go in a jacuzzi and stuff while you're waiting for your flight and stuff like that.
And they've got, you know what I mean? The whole, the whole airport there is just designed so well. Um, yeah, that was a nice airport.
Thank you very much and I appreciate it.
I've gone way over the time. Absolutely fine. It's
been a pleasure talking to you, Michael. I've enjoyed it,
That's great Ra. Take care much. It'll be a pleasure and uh, safe journeys.
That was YouTube and Noel Phillips Original music by mood mode. This episode was produced and edited by Stuart Anthony. I'm Michael Arron and you've been listening to the Flight part.
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