I’m starting this blog because I’ve realised I need a space to bring all my different interests together: flying, business, entrepreneurship, accessibility, and learning. I’m a pilot for British Airways, I’ve done my MBA, and I’ve started Access-air-bility, a project to make the airline industry more accessible for people with disabilities. But what I’m really trying to do here is to balance everything; to think out loud, to make sense of the projects I’m running, and to share the lessons I’m learning along the way.
I’ve always loved learning. Recently, it’s been physics, especially quantum and space physics, but I also have a strong interest in business, finance, and how people make decisions. What I want this blog to be is a place where I can write a series of essays linking different ideas together, from flying and leadership to economics and technology, and to show how they all connect.
I always wanted to be an airline pilot. The moment it started was when I first saw Concorde, when I was seven. I decided right then that I was going to fly it. When I heard it was being retired in 2003, I was nine, and I wrote to Captain Mike Bannister, the Chief Concorde Pilot at British Airways, to ask him not to retire it because I wanted to fly it.
He wrote back. He sent me a postcard with a Boeing 747 on it and said, in effect, “You won’t be able to fly Concorde, but look at what else you could fly for British Airways.” From that moment on, I was set: I was going to be a 747 pilot for British Airways.
All through school, that was the only goal. I did A-levels in Physics, Maths, and Geography, then went straight into flight training at Oxford Aviation Academy. I was very fortunate to get in on my first attempt and started training at 18. I qualified in June 2013, aged 19, without having ever driven a car.
At the time, the only airline recruiting was Ryanair, but they weren’t hiring many new pilots. I decided to write to every airline in the world (literally every one), from A to Z, with a CV and a cover letter. Halfway through my Europe folder, I heard that BA CityFlyer might start recruiting. It turned out they were the only UK airline I hadn’t written to yet. I sent my letter on a Friday night and a few weeks later, I got a call inviting me to an assessment.
I joined BA CityFlyer, flew the Embraer 170 and 190, and after 18 months, I got into British Airways. BA pilots are very lucky in that we can bid for which aircraft we fly. All I ever bid for was to fly the 747, and in January 2020, I finally got it. It was the aircraft I’d dreamed of flying since childhood.
Then came the pandemic. My first trip was supposed to be on 16 March 2020, a five-day trip to Cape Town, departing in the evening. That morning, all training was cancelled due to COVID. Just as I was putting my suitcase in the car, the training manager phoned and, was very apologetic but explained that I’d been taken off the trip. I told him what that flight meant to me, that it was my childhood dream, and asked if there was any chance I could have one go.
There was a long pause. Then he said, “We do have a training captain already on the trip, and we’ve just sent out a text for an immediate-report First Officer. Would you like to be that immediate-report First Officer?”
Of course, I said yes. That flight to Cape Town ended up being the last 747 training flight ever done at British Airways. I flew the same aircraft down to Cape Town that I flew back. The aircraft, G-CIVN, became my jumbo. Somewhat unbelievably, I later found a photo online of me landing it at Heathrow after that trip, too. It’s now framed on my wall; a reminder of that moment when my childhood dream came full circle. And it was all thanks to the Training Manager who, in that moment on the phone, made a human-centred decision, grounded in empathy.
That experience has stuck with me as an example of what true leadership looks like.
It wasn’t about hierarchy or policy or ticking boxes. It was a quiet, human decision. One that recognised the meaning behind the moment. He could have followed procedure and said no, but instead he paused, listened, and understood that sometimes doing the right thing isn’t about efficiency, it’s about empathy.
That decision stayed with me because it showed the kind of leadership I wanted to practise, not just in aviation, but in business and life. Leadership that’s grounded in judgement, compassion, and courage; leadership that values people as much as process. Decisions made with empathy often end up being the most effective ones. They build trust, loyalty, and meaning; the things that can’t be measured on a spreadsheet but that hold organisations together when everything else is uncertain.
That’s really what Boyce on Business is about, the human side of decision-making, in all its complexity.
After the 747s were retired, I moved back to the Airbus 320 for 2 years and then to the Boeing 777, but long-haul flying wasn’t for me. Last year, I returned to short-haul and have since begun focusing more on what’s now become my biggest interest: business, finance, and entrepreneurship.
My interest in business began after I’d finished pilot training. I got a Foundation Degree in Air Transport Management as part of my pilot training course, and was doing a module on Corporate Finance whilst topping it up to a BA (Hons) at Buckinghamshire New University. The assignment was to conduct a ratio analysis of the Lufthansa Group, and I loved turning the numbers in the financial statement into a story about how the business was performing. After completing that degree, I set up a small property management firm and an online gift shop to gain experience while saving to do my MBA. I started my MBA in 2020 at The Open University Business School, which turned out to be perfect timing, as flying had quietened down during the pandemic.
When it came time to choose my final MBA project, I wanted to do something meaningful. Something that connected my world as a pilot with my growing interest in business. I decided to study how to improve the quality of assistance services for passengers with disabilities at a major UK airport.
I thought it would be a straightforward project, probably a staffing issue. But the deeper I went, the more I realised it was far more complex. The barriers weren’t just about resources or cost; they were about leadership, coordination, and policy.
That project inspired me to create Access-air-bility, not as an advocacy group, but as a data-driven research and empowerment organisation. The aim is to make air travel easier and more accessible for people with disabilities, and to help airlines and airports understand the barriers people face. Our goal is to build the world’s largest dataset on accessible air travel, and we’re well on our way to achieving that.
What I’d really like to do through this blog is to write essays that bring together everything I’ve learned, from business and leadership to aviation and accessibility. I’ve got a multidisciplinary background: I’ve played the organ for almost 25 years, hold Grade 8 in Classical Guitar, and have worked on AI and computer vision projects before AI became mainstream. I like finding the links between disciplines, between physics and decision-making, flying and leadership, data and empathy.
Writing helps me think. It helps me link things together. Some of what I write might be a bit of a ramble, but I’ll always try to end with a clear takeaway or example.
This blog is for anyone who shares those interests, pilots, airline managers, entrepreneurs, MBAs, and anyone curious about how things connect. My hope is that these essays will educate, inspire, and help others, and also help me make sense of all the things I’m learning.
