The 20 Best TV Shows About Airplanes, Ranked by How Many People Still Look Them Up

The most-read TV show about airplanes right now is Hijack, the Apple TV+ thriller in which Idris Elba talks down a hijacking on a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London. Its English Wikipedia article drew 1,389,157 human readers in the 12 months to September 2026, just ahead of Lost.

Behind them come Manifest, Masters of the Air and Red Eye, a 2024 British thriller set on an overnight flight to Beijing. The rest of the list runs from 1950s cowboy pilots to a preschool cartoon, plus the long-running crash documentary that US viewers know as Air Disasters.

We ranked 20 series by readership, a measure of which shows people still look up, rather than by one critic’s taste. The table gives each show’s years, network and readers. Looking for films instead? Our list of the best airplane movies covers the big screen.

Rank	Show	Years	Original network	Readers, 12 months
1	Hijack	2023 to now	Apple TV+	1,389,157
2	Lost	2004 to 2010	ABC	1,355,582
3	Manifest	2018 to 2023	NBC, then Netflix	783,170
4	Masters of the Air	2024	Apple TV+	779,865
5	Red Eye	2024 to now	ITV	563,475
6	Wings	1990 to 1997	NBC	404,685
7	Catch-22	2019	Hulu	352,894
8	The Flight Attendant	2020 to 2022	HBO Max	276,362
9	Airwolf	1984 to 1987	CBS, then USA	249,792
10	Mayday (Air Disasters)	2003 to now	Discovery Channel Canada	203,088
11	Departure	2019 to 2023	Global, Peacock	198,785
12	Pan Am	2011 to 2012	ABC	170,199
13	Baa Baa Black Sheep	1976 to 1978	NBC	119,792
14	Sky King	1951 to 1959	NBC, then ABC	82,877
15	Come Fly with Me	2010 to 2011	BBC One	81,189
16	Super Wings	2014 to now	EBS (South Korea)	77,408
17	Jay Jay the Jet Plane	1998 to 2005	TLC, then PBS Kids	77,250
18	Tales of the Gold Monkey	1982 to 1983	ABC	74,794
19	12 O’Clock High	1964 to 1967	ABC	47,351
20	Airline	1998 to 2007	ITV	46,200

1. Hijack

Hijack premiered on Apple TV+ on June 28, 2023. Idris Elba plays Sam Nelson, a corporate negotiator who uses his deal-making skills to try to end the hijacking of a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London.

The show was created by George Kay and Jim Field Smith, and Archie Panjabi, Max Beesley and Christine Adams co-star. It is the aviation thriller most people are still reading about.

2. Lost

Lost follows the survivors of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, after it crashes on a mysterious island in the South Pacific. Of the 324 people on board, 70 survive the crash at first.

It ran on ABC from September 22, 2004, to May 23, 2010, for 121 episodes over six seasons. The pilot alone reportedly cost up to $14 million, and the first season won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2005.

The island, not the airplane, is the real subject. But no aviation list would be complete without the crash that launched six years of fan theories.

3. Manifest

Manifest asks what happens when a plane comes back. On April 7, 2013, Montego Air Flight 828 hits severe turbulence on its way from Jamaica to New York, then lands to find its passengers have been presumed dead for five and a half years.

Jeff Rake’s series premiered on NBC on September 24, 2018. Netflix had just made its first two seasons the most-watched show on the service when NBC canceled it in June 2021, after three seasons.

Netflix then made a fourth and final season of 20 episodes, released in two parts in November 2022 and June 2023. In August 2026, Netflix ordered a spin-off, Arrivals: A New Manifest Mystery.

4. Masters of the Air

Masters of the Air is the most expensive show on the list. The nine-episode Apple TV+ miniseries follows the 100th Bomb Group, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress unit of the Eighth Air Force flying from eastern England in World War II.

It is based on Donald L. Miller’s 2007 book and completes the trilogy that began with Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Austin Butler, Callum Turner and Anthony Boyle lead the cast, and it ran from January 26 to March 15, 2024.

The Hollywood Reporter put the cost at $250 million for nine episodes. It won one of its three Emmy nominations, although some critics found the computer-generated B-17s cartoonish.

5. Red Eye

Red Eye is the newest show on the list. In the first series, Detective Constable Hana Li, played by Jing Lusi, escorts a British doctor (Richard Armitage) on an overnight flight from London to Beijing after he is accused of manslaughter.

On board, Hana is drawn into a wider conspiracy while MI5’s director general, played by Lesley Sharp, works the case on the ground. The plane was a static set in a sound studio, and every scene, including the ones set in Beijing, was shot in and around London.

It premiered on ITV on April 21, 2024. A second series, Red Eye: Crimson Icarus, followed on January 1, 2026, and puts a bomb on another aircraft.

6. Wings

Wings is the classic airline sitcom. Brothers Joe and Brian Hackett, played by Tim Daly and Steven Weber, run Sandpiper Air, a one-plane airline at the fictional Tom Nevers Field on Nantucket.

It ran on NBC from April 19, 1990, to May 21, 1997, for 172 episodes. Cheers veterans David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee created it, set in the same fictional universe as Cheers, and Tony Shalhoub joined as the cab driver Antonio in season 3.

7. Catch-22

George Clooney’s six-part adaptation of Joseph Heller’s novel premiered on Hulu on May 17, 2019. Christopher Abbott plays Captain John Yossarian, a bombardier in the nose of a North American B-25 Mitchell who is furious that his own side keeps raising the number of missions he must fly.

The production used four real aircraft: two B-25s, a C-47 and a Junkers Ju 52. One of the Mitchells, N3675G “Photo Fanny,” played the fictional “Fly Me High!” The 1970 film version had 18 B-25s.

8. The Flight Attendant

Kaley Cuoco plays Cassie Bowden, a hard-drinking flight attendant who wakes up in a Bangkok hotel room next to the body of a passenger from her last flight. The series is based on Chris Bohjalian’s 2018 novel.

It premiered on HBO Max on November 26, 2020, and a second season followed on April 21, 2022. In January 2024, Cuoco said there were no plans for a third, so its 16 episodes are the whole story.

9. Airwolf

Airwolf is the one helicopter on the list, and its star was the aircraft. Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine crewed a high-tech attack helicopter on Cold War espionage missions on CBS from January 1984, and USA Network made a recast fourth season in 1987.

The flying Airwolf was a cosmetically modified Bell 222, serial number 47085, registered N3176S. Donald P. Bellisario created the show, which ran 79 first-run episodes over four seasons.

10. Mayday (Air Disasters, Air Crash Investigation)

Mayday is one show with several names. It is a Canadian documentary series, and in the United States the Smithsonian Channel airs it as Air Disasters, a title it first used in 2011. In the UK and Australia it is Air Crash Investigation.

Each episode rebuilds one crash, near-crash, hijacking or bombing with reenactments and computer graphics, then lets survivors, pilots and investigators explain how it happened and how it could have been prevented. It premiered on Discovery Channel Canada on September 3, 2003.

It is still in production, with 26 seasons and 287 episodes so far. At the University of New South Wales, a teaching approach loosely based on the series, built on accident scenarios, improved learning outcomes for trainee pilots.

11. Departure

Departure opens with a British passenger plane vanishing over the Atlantic. Archie Panjabi plays Kendra Malley, the lead investigator at a fictional transport safety bureau, and Christopher Plummer plays her mentor.

The Canadian series premiered in the UK in July 2019, then on Peacock in the US and Global in Canada in 2020. Its second season investigates a high-speed train crash and its third a ferry sinking, so only season 1 is about an aircraft.

Plummer finished filming his scenes for season 2 shortly before he died in February 2021. They were his final on-screen performance.

12. Pan Am

Pan Am follows the pilots and stewardesses of the Pan Am Clipper Majestic in the early 1960s, at the start of the commercial Jet Age. Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie lead a cast whose captain flies the Boeing 707.

The production built a life-size 707, kept in a hangar near the Brooklyn waterfront, which Entertainment Weekly called the biggest star of the series. It aired on ABC from September 25, 2011, to February 19, 2012.

ABC canceled it after 14 episodes. In May 2012 it won the Golden Rose for Best Series at the Rose d’Or awards, but talks with Amazon over a second season failed, and the producers ended it that June.

13. Baa Baa Black Sheep

Stephen J. Cannell’s series was based on the World War II exploits of Marine Corps aviator Greg “Pappy” Boyington and his Black Sheep Squadron, a crew of misfits in the South Pacific. Robert Conrad played Boyington.

It aired on NBC from September 23, 1976, to April 6, 1978, for 36 episodes, part military drama and part comedy. The second season was renamed Black Sheep Squadron. For the real aviators behind stories like this, see our ranking of the best fighter pilots.

14. Sky King

Sky King is the oldest show here. Arizona rancher and pilot Schuyler “Sky” King catches criminals and finds lost hikers from his airplane, the Songbird, with his niece Penny, who later becomes an accomplished air racer.

It began on NBC on September 16, 1951, moved to ABC, then into syndication, where its last new episode aired on March 8, 1959, after 72 episodes. CBS kept it on Saturdays in reruns until 1966.

Two twin-engine Cessnas played the Songbird: a Cessna T-50, then a 1957 Cessna 310B in episodes 40 through 72. The 310B is the best-known Songbird.

15. Come Fly with Me

Matt Lucas and David Walliams made this BBC One mockumentary as a spoof of the British fly-on-the-wall series Airport and Airline. It follows a major airport and three fictional airlines, including the budget carrier FlyLo.

It launched on December 25, 2010, and was the most-watched comedy of that year, with 10 million viewers. It also drew thousands of complaints, and in June 2020 Netflix removed it for its use of blackface, brownface and yellowface.

The BBC commissioned a second series, but it never aired. Lucas declined to make it, so the show stands at six episodes.

16. Super Wings

Super Wings is the airplane show for today’s preschoolers. Jett, a red and white jet, delivers packages to children around the world and calls in the other Super Wings when a delivery goes wrong.

The South Korean series premiered on EBS on September 1, 2014, and reached US viewers on Sprout in March 2015. It has also streamed on Netflix. It has run to 10 seasons and 424 episodes.

17. Jay Jay the Jet Plane

For a generation of American kids, Jay Jay was the airplane with a face. The series follows a group of talking aircraft at Tarrytown Airport and mixes 3D animation with live action.

Created by David and Deborah Michel, it premiered on TLC on November 2, 1998, and moved to PBS Kids on June 11, 2001. New episodes were made in 2005, for 62 across four seasons.

18. Tales of the Gold Monkey

Airwolf creator Donald P. Bellisario made this one first. Set in the South Pacific in 1938, it follows Jake Cutter, a former Flying Tigers pilot who runs an air cargo service in a red and white Grumman Goose called Cutter’s Goose.

It aired on ABC from September 22, 1982, to June 1, 1983, a year after Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bellisario said it was based on the 1939 Howard Hawks film Only Angels Have Wings.

19. 12 O’Clock High

Two decades before Masters of the Air, 12 O’Clock High was a weekly World War II military drama. It was based on the 1949 film of the same name and ran on ABC from September 1964 to January 1967.

Robert Lansing led the cast in the first season before Paul Burke took over for seasons 2 and 3. The 20th Century Fox Television and QM Productions series ran for 78 episodes.

20. Airline

Airline took the cameras behind the check-in desk. The ITV series followed passengers, ground staff and crew at Britannia Airways in its first series, then at EasyJet from series 2.

It ran from March 6, 1998, to January 19, 2007, across 10 series and 124 episodes. Its success led to a US version on A&E, which followed Southwest Airlines for three seasons from 2004 to 2005.

It also inspired a parody. Come Fly with Me, at number 15, spoofed Airline and its sister show Airport.

Cult Favorites Outside the Top 20

These shows have a smaller readership but a loyal following. Several of them are about bush flying in the far north or the outback, a corner of aviation that TV keeps coming back to.

Arctic Air

This CBC drama is about a maverick Yellowknife airline and the family that runs it, flying an aging fleet of Douglas DC-3s, Beavers and other aircraft. It ran from January 2012 for three seasons and 35 episodes before government budget cuts ended it in 2014.

Ice Pilots NWT

The real-life version of Arctic Air. This History Television reality series followed Buffalo Airways of Yellowknife, which flies World War II-era piston planes and Lockheed L-188 Electras year-round, for six seasons from 2009 to 2014.

Airplane Repo

Repo agents snatch aircraft from owners who have stopped paying. The Discovery series ran for four seasons from 2010 to 2015, with Mike Rowe narrating the pilot and first season.

It looks like a documentary, but Wikipedia files it as documentary-style fiction. The question of how much was staged has a story of its own.

Dangerous Flights

Discovery followed the pilots of C.B. Aviation as they ferried light aircraft to new owners over distances the planes were not designed to fly, often on routes pilots consider dangerous. It ran for two seasons and 18 episodes, from 2012 to 2014.

Big Sky

Not the American crime drama of the same name. This Australian series followed the pilots of Big Sky Aviation, where chief pilot Chris Manning (Gary Sweet) clashes with Lauren Allen, who inherits the company after her father’s death.

It ran on Network Ten for two seasons and 53 episodes, from 1997 to 1999.

Air America

Lorenzo Lamas and Scott Plank play Rio and Wiley, undercover agents working for the State Department as pilots for a Latin American airline called Air America. It premiered in syndication on October 3, 1998, and lasted one season.

Despite the shared name, the series is not based on the 1990 film Air America.

Air City

This 2007 Korean drama stars Choi Ji-woo as Han Do-kyung, the new chief of operations at Incheon International Airport, and Lee Jung-jae as a National Intelligence Service agent. It was shot almost entirely at Incheon, and its four writers interviewed more than 200 airport staff over two years.

FAQ

What is the best TV show about airplanes?

By readership, it is Hijack, the 2023 Apple TV+ thriller in which Idris Elba negotiates with hijackers on a flight from Dubai to London. Its English Wikipedia article drew 1,389,157 human readers from October 2025 to September 2026, narrowly ahead of Lost with 1,355,582.

What TV show is about a plane that disappeared and came back?

That is Manifest. Montego Air Flight 828 flies from Jamaica to New York in April 2013 and lands to find its passengers have been presumed dead for five and a half years. It ran on NBC from 2018, and Netflix made the fourth and final season, released in 2022 and 2023.

What was the TV show about two brothers who ran an airline?

That is Wings, the NBC sitcom that ran from 1990 to 1997. Brothers Joe and Brian Hackett run Sandpiper Air, a one-plane airline at a fictional airport on Nantucket, and the show lasted 172 episodes.

Is Air Disasters the same show as Mayday and Air Crash Investigation?

Yes. Mayday is a Canadian documentary series that premiered in 2003. The Smithsonian Channel airs it in the United States as Air Disasters, a title it first used in 2011, and in the UK and Australia it is Air Crash Investigation.

Is Hijack season 2 set on a plane?

No. The first series is set on a hijacked flight from Dubai to London, but the second, which premiered on January 14, 2026, is set on a Berlin underground train whose commuters are taken hostage.

What are some old TV shows about airplanes?

The classics are Sky King, which started on NBC in 1951, 12 O’Clock High from 1964, Baa Baa Black Sheep from 1976, Tales of the Gold Monkey from 1982 and Airwolf from 1984. Wings, which began in 1990, is the classic airline sitcom.

What helicopter was used for Airwolf?

Airwolf was a cosmetically modified Bell 222, serial number 47085, registered N3176S. After the show it was sold to a German charter company and flew as an air ambulance until it crashed into a mountain in fog on June 6, 1992, killing all three people on board.

Is Airplane Repo real?

Not entirely. Airplane Repo is filmed like a documentary about agents repossessing aircraft, but Wikipedia classes the Discovery series as documentary-style fiction. It ran for four seasons from 2010 to 2015.