Student gets plane to himself for eight hours on transatlantic flight

‘They literally gave me all the snacks and unlimited food,’ says the US college student

British student Kai Forsyth got a taste of the private jet life on a recent flight from London to Orlando, Florida - quickly realising he was the only passenger on board.

Forsyth posted two videos of the eerily quiet flight to TikTok, captioning one: “What would you do if you were the only passenger and had the plane to yourself?”

Mr Forsyth says he first noticed something odd when he went to select a seat for his British Airways flight from Gatwick to Orlando, where he is enrolled at Rollins College.

“You know how you pick seats when you’re checking in? There was actually no seats, none taken. I was very confused,” he told Fox News.

He arrived at the airport on 9 January to find no other passengers boarding the transatlantic flight.

Instead he spent the eight-hour service befriending members of the crew, stretching out in economy and marvelling at the limitless nibbles.

“They literally gave me all the snacks and unlimited food,” he captions one video.

Forsyth does not seem to have taken the opportunity to go and sit in first or business class - videos show him and an off-duty crew member sitting towards the back of an economy cabin.

“It was eight hours so I set up a bed”, Forsyth captions his first video, showing an empty row with the armrests down and a pillow at one end. “Literally the comfiest I’ve ever been on a plane.”

“I was actually going to sleep on the floor. I asked if I could sleep on the floor, but they have the trolleys, and they need to bring them back and forth," he told Fox presenters.

“They could have put you in 1st class,” commented one follower.

“Didn’t you get upgraded?” wrote another.

“They couldn’t,” replied the TikToker.

BA currently operates one Sunday flight from Gatwick to Orlando International, on a Boeing 777-20 aircraft with room for 315 passengers.

Upgrade or no upgrade, Forsyth seems to have had an enjoyable long-haul flight with a quiet cabin and only the crew for company.

“I’d actually like to say thank you to British Airways for providing me with a great experience like that and the flight attendant in the back, if he does watch this you know who you are, he was basically my caterer for eight hours,” Forsyth told Fox News.

“It was very surreal, I have to say.”

Passenger loads have been low on many international flights during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Norwegian businessman Alex Svanevik was the sole traveller on an Etihad service from Abu Dhabi to Singapore on 28 September.

Of the 336 seats onboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner used to operate the flight, 335 were empty.

Svanevik described the experience as “100 per cent true and 120 per cent surreal”, sharing video of the totally vacant cabin on social media.