The Plane Experience in Brasilia, Brasil, is a sensory experience that includes a culinary experience joined with aviation. The experience happens inside a real plane, a Fokker 100, parked in the back of a church. How did this project come together?

The early days

From a young age, owner and co-founder of The Plane Experience, Ricardo Espindola loved airplanes. As a child, he would play with his mother’s pressure cooker because it looked like a plane engine. Even though he grew up to study business, culinary arts, and theology, the love for aviation never left him.

The Plane Experience
Owner and co-founder, Ricardo Espindola serves as a flight attendant on The Plane Experience Flights. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

Every year, the church where Ricardo is a pastor hosted an international culinary fair. Ricardo’s region was always the Americas. In 2019, he had the idea to build a mockup of an airplane as his booth at the fair. Ricardo enlisted the help of Taty Osler, owner and co-founder, who had worked as an airport agent in Brasilia for VASP, BRA, TAM, and LATAM until 2018 when she began working at the church. Thus began the origins of The Plane Experience.

A team of people built the mockup of an Embraer E190 and, in August of 2019, the mockup was used at the church’s international culinary fair. The mockup was due to be dismantled after the fair, but the experience was such a huge success that Ricardo and Taty decided not to dismantle the plane. After the fair, the experience opened once a month for two nights, operating two flights per night, until March of 2020.

Although the pandemic brought a halt to the experience, the goal was to continue hosting these experiences. During the period of lockdowns, Ricardo spent a lot of time at the church recording content and saw the mockup of the E190 on a daily basis. One day, the desire arose in him to have a real plane to host this experience, rather than just a mockup.

Acquiring a plane

In 2014, an Avianca Fokker 100 landed in Brasilia without the forward landing gear open. Because of this issue, the plane never flew again. For some time, Avianca used the plane to train crew, but this did not last long. The airline was in the middle of updating its aircraft fleet to the Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft and the cost to restore the Fokker to flying condition was too high. The airline soon abandoned the aircraft.

Fokker 100 Avianca Brasil
The Fokker 100 sat at the airport in Brasilia for six years before being donated to The Plane Experience. Photo: Gabriel Melo | Aeroflap

For years, the aircraft sat at the airport, rotting away, and the owner wanted to get rid of it. Ricardo and Taty contacted the owner of the aircraft to see if they could acquire the Fokker to be used for the experience.

In September of 2020, the next phase of this experience was born. The Fokker 100 was donated and transported to the church to begin renovations. The renovation process took just under a year and was a complete renovation, with new flooring, installation of seats, and new paint.

Fokker 100 Avianca Brasil
The Fokker underwent a complete renovation before it could be used for The Plane Experience. Photo: Gabriel Melo | Aeroflap

The seats used in the first class cabin were first-class seats from a Boeing 767 which was operated by TransBrasil; the seats in the economy cabin are original Fokker seats. The renovation restored the aircraft to the exact configuration which it had when it operated passenger flights.

The Plane Experience First class seats
Most of the interior of the cabin is original to the Fokker 100, but the first class seats are from a TransBrasil Boeing 767. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

A new chapter

In August of 2021, the experience was re-born with a real aircraft along with a new name: PanAm Brasil. (This name was later changed because an agreement was not reached for the use of the PanAm name). On August 6 and 7, the first flights were operated for members of the press, with the official launch happening the following week.

Today, the official name of the experience is The Plane Experience, and the aircraft’s name is Clipper Golden Light. The Clipper Golden Light operates two flights per week on Friday and Saturday nights, and the destination of the flights changes every month. Because this is a sensory experience that includes food, the menu also changes every month according to the country of destination. During the month of April, the destination is Madrid, Spain and the meal consists of Spanish cuisine.

The Plane Experience menu
Owner and co-founder Ricardo Espindola is also a chef and creates the menus for every month. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

Passengers can make a reservation on The Plane Experience website and choose between first-class or economy seats. Flights last approximately three hours and include a safety demonstration with real safety equipment, footage of pushback, takeoff, and landing, even a period of turbulence mid-flight, and of course, the food.

Not only is The Plane Experience an experience for paying customers, but children from local public schools visit every Thursday afternoon and have a laid-back adventure. Most of these children have never flown in their lives, let alone been near a real airplane. Some children have dreams of flying and even becoming pilots. Every month, 300-400 children visit The Plane Experience.

inflight service The Plane Experience
Smaller regional jets require two flight attendants according to the FAA. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

Last week, I was able to visit The Plane Experience and see the work with the children as well as experience the flight as a passenger. Stay tuned for articles about the work with children and my review of the flight.