Plane: Is Trailblazer a Real Airline Company?

Directed by Jean-François Richet, ‘Plane‘ follows commercial pilot Brodie Torrance and homicide suspect Louis Gaspare through the events of an emergency landing when the Trailblazer Airlines Flight 119 derails from its route from Singapore to Honolulu. As the plane weathers the storm, the aircraft’s critical systems get damaged, leading to Brodie and his co-pilot, Dele, making an emergency landing on Jolo Island in the Phillippines. But now, in a hostile territory running amok with separatists, the lives of the passengers and crew aboard the flight are in danger. The movie follows both the perspective of the survivors on the island and that of Trailblazer’s higher-ups, who keep tabs on the incident from their headquarters in New York, trying everything at their disposal to fix their mistakes. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Trailblazer is a Fictional Company That Adds to the Worldbuilding

Trailblazer Airline is a fictional company created by Charles Cumming and J. P. Davis. The film mimics the aviation industry’s general structure and protocol in great detail, likely taking inspiration from commercial airlines like Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, which fly from Singapore to Tokyo. While there is no official confirmation about the specific aircraft model used in ‘Plane,’ it appears to be the McDonnell Douglas MD-80, an airliner series which began service in 1980, with production ending in 1999. Commercial usage of this airliner ceased in the US in June 2020, with its remaining fleet now being used mainly as freighters. The film’s fictional airline has some marked differences from its probable antecedent, the most noticeable being its glass cockpit, replacing the numerous instruments of a real MD-80 with LCD screens and an advanced communications network.

At the beginning, Brodie assures the passengers that the plane is indestructible. Ironically, the aircraft has to endure a series of misfortunes, from getting hit by a lightning strike to receiving internal damage and eventually getting caught up in a firefight. The film likely draws inspiration from real aviation accidents, such as the infamous disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014 and Air France Flight 447, which was caught in a storm in 2009. Mechanical issues, emergency landings, hijackings, and many such failures were probably mixed together to complete the narrative of ‘Plane.’ Additionally, a point it brings specific attention to is the responsibility of the fictional airline’s higher-ups to enable this disaster.

Operations at Trailblazer are marked by greed and carelessness. The narrative describes them as a third-tier airline, and multiple instances are used to display the consequences of their poor management. When Brodie informs his superiors about the bad weather ahead and requests a new route, he is quickly shut down. The supervisors explained that going through the storm would save them $12,000 worth of fuel and, citing airline protocol, force the plane to wade through a fierce storm. This decision does not end well, and Trailblazer’s cost-cutting methods quickly come back to bite them. Another instance is when Brodie manages to contact the Trailblazer helpline and alert them of the situation but is rebuffed as a prank caller, showcasing the company’s incompetence.

The Trailblazer crisis manager, David Scarsdale, comes into the picture as a breath of fresh air, immediately calling out the operators’ oversights and blunders. He pragmatically asks them to write press releases for every possible scenario in advance and immediately begins planning a way to save the passengers. Realizing that a military rescue team would take too long, he uses his personal connections to hire a private team of mercenaries for search and rescue on the island. He later provides Brodie a route to land the plane on a different island. Although unusual and impressive, this dramatic set of decisions wouldn’t have been necessary had the company displayed sound judgment and decision-making from the beginning instead of chasing profits.