• The European Union has hit Elon Musk's X with a $140 million fine.
• The bloc said the social media platform's blue checkmark system exposes users to scams.
• Musk received support from US Vice President JD Vance, who warned the EU to stop "attacking American companies."

Elon Musk is set for another battle with the European Union after the bloc fined his social media site X.

The EU said on Friday it had issued a fine of €120 million ($140 million) to X over a number of violations, including the "deceptive design" of the site's blue checkmarks.

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier on Friday, Musk reposted an X post from US Vice President JD Vance, who warned the EU against fining Musk's company and said the bloc should avoid "attacking American companies over garbage."

This is a developing story. Check back for further updates.

• With a family of 6 and aunts, uncles, and cousins to buy for, the holiday season can get expensive.
• Over the years, I've developed a few rules to help keep Christmas meaningful and affordable.
• We follow a four-gift rule, focus on budgeted exchanges, and highlight thoughtful traditions.

Each year, our Christmas season gets increasingly expensive. There are six of us in our family, and then, of course, there are aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, teachers, and bus drivers that we also like to show our appreciation to. The list goes on and on.

As financially savvy as we try to be, we've found that sticking to a few simple gift-giving rules is our best bet to avoid excess spending during the happiest season.

Cousins exchange gifts with a budget in mind

I absolutely love watching my nephews and niece open their holiday gifts, many of which were picked out by my four kids. However, with so many kids to buy for, this cousin gift exchange quickly added up in the past.

To keep things manageable, my siblings and I usually plan for our kids to exchange a set item — one year, the kids all gave books to each other — or stick to a budget of $10 per kid. Each cousin gets one gift from the other family, so we're able to keep costs down.

My kids love the challenge of finding the perfect gift for their younger cousins, all while keeping a budget in mind. It becomes like a game to them in the store.

We follow a four-gift rule for our own kids

For Christmas, we give each of our four kids four gifts to open, following our family tradition of the four-gift rule. They get something they want, something they need, something they can wear, and something they will read.

For example, one kiddo will get the latest graphic novel, sports socks, an earring set, and a small box of their favorite snacks. This not only makes holiday shopping easier, but also ensures that the kids receive items they actually want and use.

The four-gift rule also instills some equality between the kids, as well as they know what to expect.

Our kids exchange gifts among each other

During Thanksgiving break, we put our kids' four names in a bowl, and they each draw one name. They look at their sibling's wish list and choose one item to buy using their own allowance.

Once the items arrive, the sibling wraps the gift and places it under the tree. This is less expensive, and usually results in one nicer gift per child compared to buying three cheaper gifts to spread out among siblings. We love this tradition as it requires thoughtfulness and generosity.

Sometimes the kids make handmade gifts, usually cards, for me and their dad.

We enjoy holiday traditions that don't involve gifting

Some of our kids' favorite traditions are free or nearly free and we lean into these heavily during the holiday season.

We all love decorating our Christmas trees. Yes, we have more than one. They also enjoy choosing which cookies to bake and share: peanut-butter reindeer and wedding cookies are our usual favorites.

One kid likes helping their dad hang up Christmas lights above the garage that we always leave up well past Christmas. We also love a good popcorn and movie night, often enjoying Christmas movies from my own childhood.

We give to others

My kids each save 10% of their allowance throughout the year, and we collectively decide what to do with those earnings in December.

In the past, we have shopped for a family in need or children in foster care. One year, we purchased new bedding for an organization that builds beds for children.

This year, we plan to stock free food boxes around our town where anyone can take the food items they need.

This tradition is a beautiful reminder that giving is just as beautiful, if not more so, than receiving.

• A Transatlantic Delta flight nearly reached Edinburgh before turning around.
• It diverted to the Irish capital, Dublin, after circling Edinburgh for around 20 minutes.
• Edinburgh Airport halted all flights due to an IT issue with its air traffic control provider.

A Delta Air Lines flight to Scotland had to divert after an IT issue halted operations at its destination.

Delta Flight 208 took off from New York on Thursday evening and was supposed to land at Edinburgh Airport around 9 a.m. local time.

However, after a six-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean, the Boeing 767 then spent about 20 minutes circling just south of the Scottish capital.

It then changed course for Ireland, landing in Dublin just after 10 a.m.

"Due to an IT issue with our air traffic control provider, no flights are currently operating from Edinburgh Airport," the airport said in a statement on X.

Data from Flightradar24 shows 11 flights bound for Edinburgh have been diverted, mostly to nearby Glasgow.

At around 10:45 a.m. local time, less than an hour after the Delta flight landed in Dublin, flights resumed from Edinburgh Airport.

Delta could not immediately be reached for comment outside US working hours.

Have your travel plans been affected by the Edinburgh airport IT outage? Get in touch with this reporter via email at psyme@businessinsider.com or Signal at syme.99.

• NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton has a very simple rule for his employees.
• It's why, at 85, he still insists on interviewing everyone who works for his companies.
• Tarkenton said on the field or off, teamwork is still a critical asset for any company.

NFL legend Fran Tarkenton said the same issues that can kill team chemistry in the locker room can also hobble a company, which is why he insists on interviewing each of his employees.

"If you don't have the right people, you can't make it in your business, my business, and you can't make it in the NFL," the NFL quarterback-turned-founder of tech company Tarkenton told Business Insider.

Relaying a conversation with then-Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, Tarkenton said over a decade ago, he advised Carroll to cut a superstar player who was causing drama in the locker room.

"I said, if you have 40-man roster — back then we had 40-man rosters — and you have 39 All-Pro players and you have one asshole, the asshole will take over," Tarkenton said during a Tuesday interview in New York.

Tarkenton, who is CEO of his Atlanta-based company, said he considers himself a lifelong entrepreneur, dating back to a newspaper route he had at the age of 7. He played in the NFL in the 1960s and 1970s, setting records as a star quarterback.

Tarkenton's career occurred before the sport's explosion in popularity and the lucrative contracts that followed. He worked side jobs during off-seasons to make more money. After he retired, he served as a commentator on "Monday Night Football" and co-hosted ABC's "That's Incredible!," where he did a TV spot on a then 5-year-old Tiger Woods.

All of this work, Tarkenton said, was so he could reinvest the money in private ventures, which spanned from a partnership with IBM to the recent launch of pipIQ, an AI startup focused on small businesses, with a particular emphasis on maintaining LLMs in a secure environment.

Tarkenton, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986, said that he makes sure to spend at least 15 minutes with everyone from top-level executives to those just starting out. He said over the course of a year, he'll speak with 500 or more people.

"This practice stems from one of my seven business maxims: people have to talk to people," he wrote in a follow-up email. "No one succeeds alone. Communication and collaboration help us learn new ideas, strengthen our thinking, and discover better ways to do things."

No matter the line of work, Tarkenton said, it simply won't do if someone can't get along with those around them. That's why, even at 85, he insists on meeting applicants who want to work for his Atlanta-based companies.

"I want to see who they are," he said. "If they're a genius and they're not the right kind of people, it doesn't work."

• Citadel CTO Umesh Subramanian said he personally calls top candidates, including recent college grads.
• The calls have won many candidates over, but occasionally show they're not the right fit, he said.
• While the hedge fund talent war isn't new, AI has made recruiting even more competitive.

Hedge funds are locked in a fierce talent war, shelling out pay packages worth tens of millions to secure top talent — and that means executives are going all-in to woo prospective hires, even at the entry-level.

Umesh Subramanian, Citadel's chief technology officer, leads the tech teams that power the firm's investment, research, and risk-management platforms. He told Business Insider that he personally calls some of the most in-demand candidates during the decision-making process to see where their head is at. That includes not just senior-level recruits, but also recent grads, he said.

"I get on the call with them to understand how they're going to make the decision — what is driving their decisions," Subramanian said. "And oftentimes we win those candidates."

In general, the CTO said he looks for four qualities in top candidates: intellectual curiosity; a passion for winning as a team; an interest in commercial applications and not just theory; and a strong engineering background and education.

While Subramanian directly contacts some of the most sought-after candidates, those conversations haven't always resulted in them getting hired. The CTO said that sometimes the phone calls have led him to suggest they look elsewhere because another company may be more aligned with the role they describe being interested in.

"I've had a couple of conversations where I've said, 'Look, I think you should take the other job,'" He said he thinks Citadel is a great and "highly selective" company at which to start your career, but that "it is not for everyone."

Ongoing talent wars

Subramanian isn't the only executive to personally reach out to top talent in the interview process. OpenAI's Sam Altman has been similarly been said to call candidates to convince them to join the tech company, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously shown up in email chains to recruit talent, as well as reportedly hosted top candidates at his home for meals.

While the talent war at hedge funds isn't new, the scramble for AI talent has added another layer of competition to the hiring process and raised the stakes for recruiting the right people — many whom are highly sought after by traditional tech giants.

Banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have allocated billions to their tech budgets, with a portion of that investment going into hiring.

Subramanian said he has always been personally engaged in recruiting, and it's part of the company's culture for executives to be highly involved in seeking out top talent.

Citadel, specifically, is among the most competitive hedge funds. In 2025, the hedge fund and its sister firm, Citadel Securities, accepted just 0.4% of applicants for its summer training program, a record-low acceptance rate. Together, the two firms received 108,000 applications — a 20% increase from the previous year.

"Exceptional talent, world-class talent, is worth fighting for with everything that you got," Subramanian said.

• A Ukrainian company working on autonomous systems said autonomy in defense is "greatly overhyped."
• Much of what is called autonomous isn't really, he said.
• Autonomy can describe a host of abilities, including some where humans still play a big role.

The CEO of Ukrainian arms maker Ark Robotics told Business Insider that "autonomy in defense is greatly overhyped."

Much of what is labeled autonomous isn't, he said. "If we're talking about real frontline usage, we are talking less than 1% where autonomy is present."

"There's a gap between the hype around autonomy and what actually works on the frontline today," said Achi, who spoke to Business Insider using a pseudonym as a security precaution.

Defense forces, he said, "want a hundred percent reliability, and the AI is just not there." Artificial intelligence alone won't get the job done right now. Human oversight is still heavily required, but a shift is expected.

While autonomy may be deeply overhyped today, it may be completely unavoidable tomorrow.

Ark is working on more autonomous tech, and expects rapid improvements in the area. "I think we already are past the point of no return," the CEO said, adding that the current battlefield shows "autonomy is necessary."

Ark Robotics makes a suite of autonomous robots used by more than 20 Ukrainian brigades, and is developing a system that allows thousands of aerial drones and ground robots, including ones made by different companies, to work together with minimal human involvement. The system, Frontier, isn't fully autonomous, nor does it claim to be. "That's not where the industry is yet," Achi said.

He said autonomy is present in Frontier but described it as an early step toward network-level autonomy at scale.

"Time is essential," Achi explained. "Democratic countries aren't the only ones racing to build such products. We're doing our best, supported by our team's strong autonomy expertise and continuous feedback from the front line."

The autonomy question

Autonomous systems have become increasingly common in Ukraine as domestic companies and Western allies bolster its fight against Russia's invasion, now close to entering its fourth year. These systems help offset Russia's larger force size, reduce demands on operators, and keep drone pilots farther from danger.

Autonomous systems make decisions faster than humans and handle certain routine battlefield tasks, freeing troops to focus on higher-level work.

Much of what is described as autonomous still requires heavy human involvement. Part of the issue is definitional — autonomy can describe everything from basic navigation to a system that identifies, classifies, and acts on a target without direction.

More advanced systems might launch a weapon autonomously or coordinate a drone swarm. Others can learn and make decisions themselves, but many still keep humans in the loop for both ethical and policy reasons.

Warfare experts say the term "autonomous" is often used inconsistently.

A report from the UK's Royal United Services Institute last year noted that there is no agreed-upon definition for how autonomous an "autonomous" system actually is.

Kateryna Bondar, an AI and defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote earlier this year that "fully autonomous warfare remains an aspiration," but "significant progress" has been made in partial autonomy, especially with drone tech. In Ukraine, she said, "autonomous" is often used interchangeably with "unmanned," even if only limited autonomy is involved.

Chasing autonomy

Achi said his company is pursuing autonomy on two levels. The first is edge autonomy, where systems make decisions on their own without instructions from an operator or control center. He gave the example of an aerial drone scouting an area, waiting for a target, able to act on its own.

The second level, which Ark is more interested in, is the orchestration layer, where multiple drones or robots coordinate and give tasks. Achi said this level is where you can give the system "an abstract task," like protecting a perimeter, and it can then "orchestrate whatever is needed to do that," such as directing systems such as strike drones. Humans can step in if needed.

He said the second is "the hardest to solve" as it needs a good edge foundation to build on.

Frontier, Ark's AI-powered system, is designed to coordinate thousands of uncrewed systems, sharply reducing operator demands and keeping humans much farther from combat. In a demonstration in Denmark, a user remotely operated a ground robot 1,200 miles away in Kyiv.

Ark, founded in Ukraine and now headquartered in NATO member Estonia, aims to keep humans involved as little as needed so decisions can be made much faster.

An autonomous future

Western militaries and companies, as well as rivals Russia and China, are pushing for more autonomous systems. NATO is prioritizing autonomous technology, particularly in drone technology, for threat detection.

Among many lines of effort are programs like the US Department of Defense's push for all-domain attritable autonomous systems through the Replicator initiative and the UK's substantial investment this year of more than $5 billion in uncrewed autonomous systems.

How far autonomy can go technologically remains to be seen, and its use may be limited by ethical debates. As is, Western militaries often restrict higher levels of autonomy in lethal systems.

But Achi said there won't be any turning back, and expects all militaries to be using it in some form. He said autonomy has become "kind of prerequisite to be successful in the total drone warfare that is coming to all of us."

"You can have all these fancy drones," he said, "but what is the use of them if you can't really deploy them at scale?"

• The phrase "AI bubble" has recently been in the zeitgeist.
• Mentions in earnings calls and investor conference transcripts increased 740% from last quarter.
• Only demonstrable profits will quiet the talk, analyst Gil Luria told BI.

There's a bubble in talk of an "AI bubble."

The phrase "AI bubble" appeared in 42 earnings calls and investor conference transcripts between October and December — a 740% increase from the previous quarter, according to an AlphaSense analysis.

In the third quarter of 2025, five transcripts mentioned the term. The quarter before that, four. For all of 2024, executives and analysts used the phrase in 24 transcripts total. In 2023, it was nine. (The analysis counted transcripts where "AI" and "bubble" appeared within five words of each other.)

Now dozens of companies across semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, financial services, and industrials are fielding some version of the same question: Is the AI boom a bubble?

At UBS's Global Technology and AI Conference on December 2, AMD CEO Lisa Su told investors, "from the standpoint of, you know, do we see a bubble? We don't see a bubble."

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress similarly swatted the premise aside, describing it onstage as a "supposed AI bubble."

Her boss, CEO Jensen Huang, said as much in Nvidia's November earnings call. "There's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble," he said. "From our vantage point, we see something very different."

Aixtron, a German semiconductor-equipment maker, was asked in its November earnings call whether customers might slow capacity plans if AI enthusiasm wanes. Coface, a Paris-based credit insurer, described re-running the math on big AI-related capital requests to ensure they hold up even if "bubble-type enthusiasm" fades.

So why the sudden spike?

Analysts pointed to the sheer scale of the numbers being tossed around.

"We've been seeing these huge partnerships and people throwing out money amounts for infrastructure — like trillions of dollars — which I can't remember ever hearing before," Sarah Hoffman, director of AI thought leadership at AlphaSense, told Business Insider. That gap between the trillions being invested and the billions in revenue from many AI efforts, she said, "is what's getting people a little bit freaked out."

Gil Luria, managing director and head of technology research at DA Davidson, said analysts and CEOs are voicing anxieties they're already hearing from investors.

Luria pointed to what he called "circular transactions" as one source of anxiety. "Nvidia investing a dollar in CoreWeave, CoreWeave borrows nine, and uses eight of them to buy Nvidia chips," he said. "That's the echoes of bubbles past."

The past eight weeks have given bubble proponents plenty of ammunition.

Tech luminaries, including Sam Altman and Bill Gates, have said there's some froth in AI spending. In earnings calls this quarter, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all said they planned to increase their spending on data centers that are the backbone of AI. Michael Burry, whose bet against the housing market was made famous in "The Big Short," made headlines after he said he had shorted Nvidia, the world's most valuable company.

While executives have pushed back on skeptics, Luria said that only cash will quiet the conversation.

"There's nothing they can say that will change people's perception of whether or not there's a bubble," he said. "The only thing they can do is show results, and those have to be financial results."

• Christmas is three weeks away, but shoppers have more time than ever to procrastinate on gifts.
• Amazon, Target, and Walmart are each offering ultrafast ordering options as late as Christmas Eve.
• The changes are part of a broader push to make shopping even more convenient — and immediate.

Santa has more helpers than ever this year.

Christmas is still three weeks away, but shoppers now have more time to procrastinate on gifts and supplies for the holiday.

Amazon, Target, and Walmart are each racing to offer ultrafast fulfillment options as late as Christmas Eve, as each company looks to earn shoppers' trust that they can deliver in a pinch.

Target said in November that it is extending store hours from 7 a.m. to midnight in the weeks leading up to December 23, and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve before closing for Christmas Day.

During those operating hours — including Christmas Eve — Target says customers can get orders within two hours via curbside or in-store pickup, or opt for same-day delivery for a $9.99 fee (or free for Circle360 members).

And starting December 9, Amazon will display an "Arrives before Christmas" message on item listings, many of which will be available for fulfillment as late as Christmas Eve via delivery or one of the company's 25,000 pickup locations.

The company says it will even gift-wrap certain items.

Walmart has also been leaning hard into establishing itself as one of the fastest ways to get anything from barbecue sauce to Barbie dolls — and it's only getting faster.

The retail giant hasn't made a Christmas-specific delivery announcement yet, but last year it promised to fulfill express delivery orders placed as late as 4 p.m. local time on Christmas Eve.

More recently, Walmart said it fulfilled its fastest Black Friday order in 10 minutes, with big increases in both the volume and speed of deliveries fulfilled from its stores.

The changes are part of a broader push among retailers to make shopping more convenient — and immediate.

Target is rolling out a shopping experience within ChatGPT — including delivery options on orders with multiple items — ahead of the holidays. And, this week, Amazon announced a 30-minute delivery test in Seattle and Philadelphia, while Walmart expanded its drone delivery services in Atlanta.

In other words, the race is on to see who can deliver the cheer like Saint Nick.

• Apple has lost over a dozen executives and researchers this year, with others announcing their retirement.
• Meta hired nine of these former Apple employees.
• Others left for AI startups, OpenAI, or simply retired.

They're not called the AI talent wars for nothing.

With Big Tech firms scrambling to attract top talent, executives and artificial intelligence researchers have done a lot of job-hopping this year, and Apple employees were no exception.

The company has lost over a dozen employees who worked on its AI projects, from executives to scientists to engineers, and even its AI chief, John Giannandrea, who announced this week he was stepping down from the role.

One competing tech company has been the biggest beneficiary of the departures at Apple: Meta.

Nine of the former Apple employees listed below have landed at Meta, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been offering notoriously large pay packages and incentives to attract AI talent from across the industry.

Other ex-Applers jumped ship to join OpenAI.

To be sure, Apple has done some of its own recruiting too; its new vice president of AI is Amar Subramanya, who left Google in June to join Microsoft, only to join Apple several months later. Meta's top lawyer, Jennifer Newstead, is departing to become Apple's general counsel.

Here's a running list of the AI talent Apple has lost this year and where they've ended up.

Executives:

John Giannandrea

Giannandrea was the senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy at Apple and held the role for almost eight years. He will be retiring in the spring of 2026, but will serve as an advisor to Apple until then.

Alan Dye

Dye was the head of human interface design and was a pivotal figure in designing some of the company's software. He will be joining Meta to run a new creative studio inside its Reality Labs division.

Kate Adams

Adams has served as Apple's general counsel since 2017. She will transition her duties to Newstead and retire later in 2026.

Lisa Jackson

Jackson, Apple's vice president for environment, policy, and social initiatives, is set to retire at the end of January 2026.

AI leaders and researchers:

Frank Chu

Chu was the head of engineering at Apple for nearly six years before he departed for Meta. He is now a software engineer at the Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Ruoming Pang

Pang was a senior distinguished engineer at Apple who led the company's foundation models team. He joined Meta's Superintelligence Labs as an AI research scientist in July.

Robby Walker

Walker was the senior director of answers, knowledge, and information at Apple. He announced his departure a month prior to leaving in October.

Tom Gunter

Gunter joined Meta in July as an AI research scientist after over seven years at Apple, where his title was distinguished engineer.

Ke Yang

Yang was the senior director of machine learning at Apple. He was at Apple for six years and described his departure as "bittersweet" in a LinkedIn post. He is now an AI research scientist at Meta.

Chong Wang

Wang was a distinguished scientist at Apple before joining Meta as an AI research scientist.

Shuang Ma

Ma was a senior research scientist at Apple. She joined Meta's Superintelligence Labs as a research scientist in July.

Liutong Zhou

Zhou was a senior applied machine learning scientist at Apple until he left for Cohere, a Canadian AI startup, as a member of technical staff on foundation models.

Bowen Zhang

Zhang, formerly a staff machine learning researcher at Apple, joined Meta in July as an AI research scientist.

Mark Lee

Lee was a research engineer at Apple before joining Meta in July as an AI research scientist.

Brandon McKinzie

McKinzie was a senior research engineer of foundational models at Apple, before joining OpenAI as a member of its technical staff.

Dian Ang Yap

Yap was a machine learning researcher at Apple. He joined OpenAI in August as a member of its technical staff.

• UK startup Global Airlines acquired its second four-engine jet: a leased 25-year-old Airbus A340.
• It already owns an Airbus A380 and flew a handful of trips in May, but early reviews were mixed.
• Industry analysts question Global's strategy of flying fuel-thirsty quad-jets in a crowded market.

A new British airline is building its future on fuel-thirsty widebodies that most major carriers have spent years getting rid of.

UK-based Global Airlines — a carrier whose plan to fly costly quad-engine jets across the Atlantic has drawn wide skepticism — acquired a "new" plane on Tuesday: a 25-year-old Airbus A340.

It's leased from the third-party operator Hi-Fly, with the registration 9H-SUN, and is not owned by Global.

The choice has raised eyebrows as the A340 family, which first flew in 1991, is a jet more likely to be scrapped in an aircraft boneyard than painted in a fresh livery. Think of it like buying a used car with 200,000 miles on the odometer.

Global CEO James Asquith revealed the plane in an Instagram video on Tuesday, panning to the plane in a hangar in Portugal. It was the first major update for the airline since flying its fully owned Airbus A380 — another fuel-hungry quad-engine jet — in May.

Global, a privately held startup founded in 2021 with early backing from private investors, has been in and out of the spotlight in a "will they, won't they" survival saga that has analysts questioning its unusual plan to use large, expensive jets across the highly competitive transatlantic corridor.

Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst and president of Atmosphere Research Group, told Business Insider that the A340 is a "puzzling" choice considering its high operating and maintenance costs.

"I've flown on the A340 as a passenger; it's a sound airplane, it's safe," he said. "But it's just not the most logical or cost-efficient aircraft to acquire. A well-suited twin-engine like the Boeing 777 or Airbus A330 would inevitably be less expensive to operate and maintain."

To be fair, Harteveldt said it's possible Global didn't have the capital. Asquith has previously said he has found bargain prices on old, unwanted planes, which will offset the high costs of operating them. The economics depend partly on fuel prices remaining stable.

Choosing the A340 shows Global is leaning hard into this strategy — building a fleet around gas-guzzling, harder-to-fill widebodies. Many other airlines have gone in the opposite direction.

European carriers Lufthansa, Swiss, and Edelweiss plan to retire their remaining A340s within the next two years. Cirium data shows a dozen other airlines still operate the quad-jet, though none are US-based. Back in 2003, the earliest Cirium data available, nearly 40 carriers flew the A340.

The A380 has seen similar retirements. Air France, China Southern (the previous owner of Global's A380), and Thai Airways withdrew the superjumbo as its high fuel burn and limited flexibility became harder to justify.

Airbus ended A380 production in 2021 after orders dried up.

Global's A380 has been grounded for 4 months

When Global first bought its 13-year-old A380, registered 9H-GLOBL, it required thousands of hours of maintenance after spending a year collecting dust in the California desert.

"We've worked really hard the last few years to do what everyone said was impossible and put our first own A380 into the sky, through heavy maintenance, and flying passengers across the Atlantic with our operating partners," Asquith said.

He added that Global had ambitious plans and some goals may have been a "stretch too far," but it "comes with the territory of buying A380s and getting them flying."

One missed goal is timing: Global originally aimed to launch in 2024, but it still has no regular service or its own operating certificate. Its one-off May flights, operated by Hi-Fly, were to prove it could carry passengers, and the flagship A380 has been grounded since July.

Asquith told Simple Flying in December that the jet must undergo a weeks-to-months-long "D-check," meaning mechanics must essentially disassemble it piece by piece to inspect its safety and airworthiness, and then reassemble it.

Global plans to eventually start US to UK service. But doing so means taking on airlines with entrenched loyalty programs, major corporate contracts, and fleets of fuel-efficient twin-engine Airbus and Boeing aircraft far cheaper to operate than Global's aging, four-engine jets.

Beyond the nostalgic appeal of its quad-engine jets, Global has little yet to draw travelers. With only two planes, any maintenance problem can fully disrupt travel.

Younger airlines are also prone to sudden shutdowns, as seen with WOW Air in 2019 or the short-lived Nevada-based regional airline Aha! in 2022, leaving travelers with booked tickets in the lurch.

And the few flights that run weren't cheap. Its April debut fares were around $1,000 round-trip in economy, $5,000 in business, and $9,000 in first — higher than competitors on the inaugural route.

The airline bills itself as a luxury option, so premium fares aren't surprising, but uncompetitive pricing hurts its appeal — especially when the cabin fell short of the hype.

Global eventually cut fares by roughly half, but only filled about a fourth of its 506 seats: "The A380, and the A340 even, is way too much plane for a startup," Hardeveldt said.

Global's cabin and route strategy need tuning

Global's inaugural flight drew mixed reactions from bloggers and YouTubers on board.

While some praised the food and amenities, others complained about the broken in-flight entertainment and inconsistent service. And some said the seats — even in business and first class — didn't match the grand interior Global had long promised

Instead of installing a new cabin, Global kept the China Southern seats but upholstered them with Global branding and added touches, like complimentary Champagne in economy and lamps in business.

Harteveldt said it would take at least 18 months to design, certify, and install a completely new cabin.

Even if it fixes the luxury aspect, Harteveldt questioned where Global could profitably fly. London Heathrow and Gatwick are slot-restricted, limiting daily flights. Other metro airports are inconvenient or can't handle the larger quad-engine jets.

Plus, UK destinations are already served by well-known airlines. American Airlines, for example, is launching an Airbus A321XLR with an all-new cabin to Edinburgh in December. JetBlue and United are also expanding to Scotland.

"Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic with a single [four-engine] Boeing 747 between New Jersey and Gatwick, but this isn't the 1980s," Harteveldt said. "It's a very different North American market now; airlines aren't going to cede even one-tenth of a point of market share willingly."