Plane crazy: Brisbane Airport livestreams attract thousands

On any given day, they can be perched on top of the Brisbane Airport car park – cameras pointing at movements on the tarmac below – streaming to a worldwide audience.

Between them, Only Planes Network – a cheeky nod to a slightly more notorious website – and Julia Flights have more than 65,000 subscribers from all over the world.

Gavin and Julia from the Julia Flights YouTube channel airside at Brisbane Airport.Credit: Brisbane Airport

And those subscribers tune in by the thousands to listen to their commentary, and air traffic control, as they watch hours’ worth of comings and goings at Brisbane Airport.

Julia Flights’ mononymous stars, Julia and camera operator Gavin, did their first stream in April 2023. Only Planes Network came online four months later in August.

“We’re absolutely ‘avgeeks’ – we love all things aviation and when we opened our channel, we weren’t really convinced [we would get an audience] because we had no idea about YouTube,” she said.

“We started doing videos and people started demanding that we start live-streaming.”

That demand is borne out in the numbers. At the time of writing, Julia Flights had about 35,500 subscribers, many of whom watched for hours on end.

“It reminds me of growing up watching the cricket,” Gavin said.

“It was always there in the background. You could walk away and come back.”

Julia said she never expected to find such a large audience.

Julia Flights streaming the arrival in Brisbane of Canadian rapper Drake from atop the domestic terminal car park.Credit: Julia Flights

“When we first started, we thought no one’s going to watch, it will be just us and maybe a couple of friends,” she said.

“Then when all these people started showing up [in the comments] and asking for more and more, that was just mind-blowing.”

Over at Only Planes Network, James Haddow and Matt Finlay provide a running commentary on Brisbane Airport’s comings and goings, with two distinct camera angles.

Listening to their banter, listeners could think they were standing together. In reality, one is manning a camera on top of the domestic terminal car park and the other at the airport viewing platform on Acacia Street, about 1.5 kilometres away.

Matt Finlay (left) and James Haddow from the Only Planes Network, pictured much closer together than they normally are.Credit: Brisbane Airport

“I often have to remind myself that we’re getting a lot of new people tuning in, and they wouldn’t be aware of that fact,” Haddow said.

“I should probably be mentioning it more often – ‘Hey, welcome along. We’re actually in two different locations, but you might not have realised.’”

Only Planes’ two-camera approach set it apart from most other streamers, and – like Julia Flights – the channel enjoys a co-operative relationship with Brisbane Airport.

“On Tuesday, we covered [Cathay Pacific Cargo’s] inaugural 747 arrival, and Brisbane Airport actually organised for the operating pilots to come up and speak to us on the live show after they’d landed,” he said.

“That was pretty special. You just don’t see that anywhere else.”

Haddow said the most popular streams in Only Planes’ history came as Cyclone Alfred approached in March.

“Just before the cyclone hit, we covered all the final movements at the airport before they shut down,” Haddow said.

“That was ridiculous. We had about 7000 people tuned in while we were live and we ended up with about 10,000 likes during the live stream.

“It was record numbers for us, and pretty much record numbers as a whole in this niche, certainly in Australia.”

A screenshot of the Boeing E-4 “Doomsday Plane” departing Brisbane Airport on July 30, 2023.Credit: Julia Flights

For Gavin, Julia Flights’ highlight was in 2023, when then-US defence secretary Lloyd Austin was in town.

“The doomsday plane was here,” he said, referring to the US Air Force’s Boeing E-4B Nightwatch, a modified 747 that can act as an airborne command centre at times of emergency, such as a nuclear war.

“There was the E-4, there were [USAF] Gulfstreams, heaps of other stuff going on. That was probably the best stuff we’ve seen at Brisbane.”

All the Brisbane streamers had full-time jobs, with no plans to make streaming a primary career.

“Once it becomes your job, the vibe changes,” Julia said.

So do Julia Flights and Only Planes Network consider themselves comrades or competition?

“We don’t talk a whole lot,” Haddow said.

“We share the same audience, so we work closely with Brisbane Airport to avoid streaming at the same time, so that we’re not stepping on each other’s toes. I think that really, really works well.”

Matt Finlay and James Haddow from Only Planes at the Brisbane Airport viewing platform.Credit: Brisbane Airport

Gavin said they just focused on their own stream, not what others were doing.

“I don’t want to be influenced by other people,” he said.

“We just do it our way. If people like it, that’s great. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter – we’re out there having a good time.”

Both channels work closely with Brisbane Airport media manager Peter Doherty for the necessary permissions.

Doherty said, despite its size relative to other airports around the world, a live stream from Brisbane was fertile ground for plane enthusiasts.

“No other airport in the world offers such a diverse mix of aircraft, from the Airbus A380 to Royal Flying Doctor Service planes, as well as jets and helicopters operated by LifeFlight, not to forget the world’s largest fleet of Fokkers, which are a constant crowd pleaser,” he said.

To watch live streams from Brisbane Airport, visit the YouTube channels Only Planes Network and Julia Flights.

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