A380 Startup Global Airlines Is Ordered Into Compulsory Liquidation by a UK Court

Global Airlines, the British startup that set out to fly the Airbus A380 across the Atlantic, has been ordered into compulsory liquidation. A notice in The Gazette, the UK’s official public record, published on November 12, 2026, shows the High Court in London made a winding-up order against Global Airlines Ltd on November 4.

The order followed a creditor’s petition filed on May 29, 2026. According to the winding-up notice, the Official Receiver, a government officer of the court, was appointed liquidator on the day the order was made.

What the court record shows

The petition was first advertised in The Gazette on June 18, 2026. It was brought by an individual creditor based in Naples, Florida, and was listed for a first hearing on July 15 in the Insolvency and Companies List of the High Court.

The case then ran for almost four more months. In September, One Mile at a Time reported that hearings had been held on July 15 and September 2, and that this was not the first winding-up petition the company had faced.

AeroTime, which first reported the order, said two former directors, Tom Stokely and Prashant Uttamchandani, joined the case as supporting creditors. Companies House records show Stokely left the board on April 14, 2026, and Uttamchandani on May 3.

At the time of writing, Companies House still lists the company as active, with founder James Asquith among its three current directors. Its annual confirmation statement, due by November 6, is marked overdue.

AeroCorner found no public statement from Global Airlines on the order. AeroTime said it had asked the company for comment.

An airline that flew a handful of charters

Global Airlines Ltd was incorporated on July 13, 2021, with a plan for a premium transatlantic airline built around the Airbus A380-800. It was a bold bet on a type whose airline base has shrunk: Airbus delivered 251 A380s to 14 airlines, and only ten still fly the superjumbo.

The startup never obtained its own air operator certificate. Its one aircraft, a former China Southern A380 registered 9H-GLOBL, flew a short run of charters in May 2025 under a wet lease, with a Maltese subsidiary of the Portuguese operator Hi Fly flying it on Global’s behalf.

The first of those flights, from Glasgow to New York JFK on May 15, 2025, carried fewer than 100 passengers, One Mile at a Time reported. A Manchester to New York round trip followed later that month.

According to AeroTime, the jet has been in long-term storage at Tarbes, in southwest France, since July 2025. Asquith has blamed the long grounding on a backlog at heavy maintenance shops, and he had said he aimed to fly again before the end of 2026, One Mile at a Time reported.

What a winding-up order means now

Compulsory liquidation is the court-ordered version of closing a company that cannot pay its debts. Under Companies House guidance, the Official Receiver’s first job as liquidator is to identify, collect, secure and protect the company’s assets.

The Official Receiver must also investigate the company’s affairs, report to creditors and report on the conduct of its officers. That conduct report covers every director in office during the company’s last three years of trading, and it is a required step, not a finding against anyone.

Other creditors can now register claims for what they are owed. GOV.UK warns creditors that they may not get back all, or any, of their money once the assets are sold.

A company can ask the court to cancel, or rescind, a winding-up order, for example if it can pay its debts. GOV.UK says that application must be made within five working days of the order, which counted from November 4 ran to about November 11, the day before the notice appeared.

Whether any such application was made is not public. Nor is the fate of 9H-GLOBL settled: Asquith said in 2025 that the airline had bought the aircraft, but the public records checked for this story do not show which company holds it today.

If the A380 belongs to Global Airlines Ltd, securing and selling it falls to the liquidator, along with anything else the company owns. For now, Global’s only A380 stays parked at Tarbes while the liquidation runs its course.