YouTuber Josh Cahill is one of the more well-known airline vloggers out there. As you’d expect, people have mixed opinions on him. On the one hand, I give him credit for flying unique airlines, and trying to hold airlines accountable. On the other hand, he also no doubt dramatizes things quite a bit (“stolen,” “scam,” etc.), and looks for problems.
That brings us to his latest video, where I have to call him out a bit, despite him probably being correct on this being a terrible airline.
Josh Cahill flew Legend Airlines, which is shady as could be
In his latest video, Josh flew Legend Airlines, a Romanian charter carrier that has a fleet of two Airbus A340-300s. Funny enough, the carrier flies planes that initially operated for Finnair, before operating for Air Belgium (man, good times!).
Legend Airlines doesn’t operate regularly scheduled flights, but instead, leases out its planes, including to other airlines, and also for one-off charters. Josh flew Legend Airlines on a flight it was operating on behalf of Tunisair, between Paris Orly (ORY) and Tunis (TUN).
Josh correctly points out the operator is really shady. It has been accused of human trafficking, and its owners have ties to Afghanistan, and Josh suggests even ties to the Taliban (I’m just passing on what he’s claiming). Anyway, I do think that as an airline registered in the European Union, there should perhaps be a bit more scrutiny of the company’s practices.
Anyway, Josh’s video about his flight is titled “Crew tries to SHUT ME DOWN – Onboard Europe’s DODGIEST Airline!” He boards the flight filming, and narrates the video saying “they had one clear order from management — shut him down, and don’t allow him to film.”
Once Josh gets to his seat, he films an interaction with the crew, where they confront him about his filming. It happens at the 7min10sec mark in the below video…
When it comes to filming, I side with the crew
I try to look at things objectively, and in the past, I’ve defended Josh when he was in the right, and airlines wronged him. So I say all of this neither as a “hater” nor as a “super fan” of Josh, and just as someone who sometimes enjoys watching his videos.
Is Legend Airlines super shady? Yes, in my opinion. Was the crew right for calling him out? Yes, in my opinion.
Reading the comments on the video, I’m kind of amazed at the extent to which we normalize outright lies, so can someone help me understand this?
A vast majority of airlines allow people to take pictures or videos, as long as they respect the privacy of others. Look, this isn’t really a hot take, but Josh does not respect the privacy of others… like, 0%. He’ll gladly film all his interactions with people, and in a vast majority of situations (presumably unless he’s threatened, or he thinks there could be legal consequences), he doesn’t blur anything out.
So the crew saw him filming, and they asked him not to do that. I wouldn’t call simply enforcing virtually every carrier’s photography and video policy to be any sort of shutting him down. When he insists he’s just filming himself, they back off.
What I find bizarre is that while he’s interacting with the crew and recording them, he outright lies:
- “Nobody will be on the internet or anything like this”
- “Have I recorded you? I have not recorded you, there is no record of you”
- “Your privacy is protected, and I have a right to film myself, thank you very much”
I’m sorry, but does everyone just gloss over the fact that he is gaslighting the crew about recording them while recording them?! In the video he published, he did blur out their faces, but presumably only due to them confronting him (since he doesn’t otherwise typically do that).
Quite to the contrary of Josh’s claims, it doesn’t actually seem like they were trying to shut him down for recording. Many airline crews might try to do that, but the Legend Airlines crew didn’t.
I’m just bothered by the approach he takes here. He consistently violates the privacy of others, in violation of airline rules, and when he’s called out by a crew for doing so, he lies and claims he’s not recording them?
Hey, as someone who also reviews airlines, I totally get that this is his job, and I appreciate that he generally tries to do this independently and objectively (unlike some others). But either do more to respect the privacy of others, or at least don’t outright lie about the extent to which you don’t make any efforts to protect the privacy of others.
Bottom line
YouTuber Josh Cahill flew Legend Airlines, which is no doubt an incredibly suspicious airline with some questionable practices. While I 100% agree with him on that, I don’t think he has much room to play the victim card for being called out for filming.
The crew simply asked that he respect the privacy of others, and his response was to claim that he wasn’t recording them while recording them… which to me seems wrong, but maybe that’s a hot take?
Where do you stand on this Legend Airlines filming interaction?
Membership is free and takes no more information than commenting as a guest. Earn status points for good contributions, and see fewer ads as your status grows.