Jamaican-born American Airlines captain recounts viral Toronto flight with childhood friend

Captain Andrew Neville Anderson, a Jamaican-born aviator with American Airlines, drew widespread attention after a video showed him flying to Toronto alongside his childhood friend Andre Turner, whom he helped pursue their shared ambition of becoming pilots. Speaking from Miami, Anderson traced a bond that began when the two were eleven years old in Kingston.

Both men attended St. George's College and Wolmer's Boys' High School before leaving Jamaica. Anderson moved to the United States at sixteen for a pre-med programme, arriving on 4 September 2001, days before the 9/11 attacks reshaped the aviation industry. He studied medicine for two years before a discovery flight, costing about eighty dollars, convinced him to switch paths. Turner had long wanted to fly, though his parents steered him elsewhere after the attacks.

The friends trained together in Melbourne, Florida, worked side jobs—including at Circuit City and a call centre—and later flew for regional carriers before their careers diverged. Anderson joined Copa Airlines, living in Panama for two years while learning Spanish, and later spent time in Colombia and Brazil. He described the post-9/11 hiring climate as brutal; American Airlines had not recruited pilots for thirteen years when he eventually joined the carrier he had dreamed of since childhood flights from Jamaica.

Anderson now serves as the youngest captain at American Airlines and recently completed training in Dallas ahead of a New York–Scotland route that would make him the youngest Airbus captain at the airline to fly to Europe. His initial trip is expected in roughly two weeks.

The viral moment on Flight 1246 came together only after Turner's original first-officer assignment fell through and the opening landed on the schedule. Turner picked it up at Anderson's urging. The clip has drawn about 1.2 million views—far more than Anderson anticipated when he posted it to share their story.

Anderson credited Turner with steady encouragement through flight school, including daily rides to campus when transportation was scarce. Though Anderson was scheduled off duty the morning of the interview, a last-minute New York rotation was delayed long enough for him to speak before returning to Miami the same night.