Popular travel vlogger Josh Cahill was doxxed by Aero Dili after a negative review. There’s no defense for such unethical retribution. Period. But Cahill might use this moment to reconsider his business model.
Josh Cahill Doxxed After Assailing Airline In Scathing Review
In September 2023, Cahill flew from Bali (DPS) to East Timor (DIL) on flag carrier Aero Dili and published the following trip report:
He had run into a problems at check-in in Bali and also suffered from food poisoning onboard. The review was far from flattering.
But what happened next was even stranger.
Acacia Mota, who is the country manager for Aero Dili, posted on Facebook that Cahill reached out before the flight and demanded:
- free fight
- complimentary hotel
- food allowance
- $50,000 in cash
In exchange, he would post a positive review.
Like Live And Let’s Fly, Cahill’s policy is to turn down free flights in order to offer a more unbiased review. I’m quite comfortable in saying that Cahill made no such demand.
Rather than post an email or other evidence of this demand, Mota posted an un-redacted picture of Cahill’s passport.
Cahill protested other airline and heard nothing back. Then he protested to the government of East Timor and was told there are no data privacy laws and therefore no wrongdoing was committed.
That’s crazy…
A pilot also threatened to doxx him online and assailed his review.
There is no defense of the action by Aero Dili or the employees in question.
Cahill has launched a crusade to block Aero Dili from launching planned service to Singapore, appealing to the Singaporean government to scratch the service because of the lack of data protection.
Cahill Does Not Help Himself
I didn’t want to discuss this here, but in light of what happened to Cahill I’ll do so now.
I’m working on adding a video component to Live And Let’s Fly…it will be review focused, but unique compared to the way Daniel Goz / Sam Chui / Josh Cahill compose their reviews. Stay tuned for details about that.
I do a lot of clickbait here on Live And Let’s Fly, but you will notice it is almost always about passengers who misbehave, not about my experience and assessment of carriers. My reviews are a very serious endeavor, and the photos and commentary are anything but fluff.
One thing that (I hope) distinguishes this brand from others is that I travel a lot and I take my reviews very seriously. I go out of my way to be fair and I realize that a negative flight or hotel review can have very serious consequences concerning the employees or even carrier involved.
In short, my clickbait is of the non-substantive variety. It is fluff meant to entertain more than to enlighten. I don’t mess around with my reviews and don’t make sweeping judgments or generalizations about a carrier based upon one bad flight.
Cahill has taken a very different approach. I commend him for the audience has stitched together and I laud him for what he has accomplished. It’s a great business model in terms of revenue and I think he loves the work he does (we’ve chatted before, but not in depth).
But what bothers me about Cahill is his post-pandemic turn to the overly-dramatic. No doubt, it is great for clicks. No doubt this whole Aero Dili issue is the best possible thing that could have happened to him concerning that flight. What a goldmine of possibility!
But browse his videos and you will see that he is better than anyone else in manufacturing outrage. We both flew Tunisair and had pretty mediocre experiences, but I thought his review was over the top:
And then going ballistic about his Bulgaria Air flight was so overly dramatic.
And there’s a whole lot more…
Look how he cornered the Aero Dili employees on the video above. Believe me, you shove a video in my face and talk down to me like that and I am not going to talk to you…
Again, it’s a business model that works, but this is a very serious game when you have nearly 700K subscribers, the consequences of such reviews are real. Saying an airline is not safe is a very serious charge.
My videos will not be as exciting…that I can promise you…but I’m not going to turn service issues into final pronouncements of death about the carrier. Even the best carriers have bad days.
CONCLUSION
There is no excuse at all for Cahill being doxxed. I am planning a trip to East Timor this year and I will fly Aero Dili…we’ll see how it goes with me. This carrier owes Cahill a big apology. But I do think this is a moment for Cahill to consider how he makes sweeping statements about carriers based upon limited flight experiences.
image: Bahnfrend / Wikimedia Commons
Calling what he (or any so called influencer) does a business model is a stretch. But we all know what PT Barnum said, so maybe it is?
That said, I don’t feel this goes to the level of a true doxxing. Either he is a public figure or not and when you make that decision in life, everything is fair game. And if someone crazy really wants to find personal information on someone, it’s out there.
You decide to F with huge corporations, don’t expect them to not fight back. And I wouldn’t be shocked if this clown has tried extortion in the past.
If it’s not real doxxing, how about the next airline you fly also posts your passport?
The level of insanity in these comments is wild. Leaking someone’s sensitive data like that is a criminal offense in many countries, even if not in this one. Your passport contains important personal information that makes identity theft and other cybercrimes extremely easy.
This narcissist just loves drama. And he’s going to FAFO for real one day in the wrong part of the world. The airline was way out of line but this clown invited that chaos into his life with his click bait, attention seeking behavior.
Yeah, let him fly air koryo . See what happens then
Will someone post a screenshot of his passport to backup his accusation. I refuse to click on his ranting.
I looked up the Facebook account of the man who doxxed him and the posts are still there, but he has made them “private” so I cannot see them.
The airline is now investigating this incident per their Facebook page. It will be interesting to see what happens. https://www.facebook.com/aerodili2018/
He claims he and other passengers got food poisoning. Food poisoning is unusual to manifest within a 700 mile flight (as it usually takes time) so his claim of others getting sick is unusual unless he has personal contact with them.
Weirdly interesting. Cahill’s gesturing in the face of the manager was rude and unnecessary. If it was food poisoning, why dine at a burger king? If the country allows doxxing, oh well. And good to know.
Looking forward to video trip reports here.
Semi off topic but I tend to avoid this guy’s videos. Like you said, overly dramatic. Probably trying to emulate something like a Jeremy Clarkson but doesn’t have the charm to pull it off and just comes off as a douche. (His thumbnails suck too) And then you mentioned Sam Chui, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum — too much of a shill, and is borderline creepy with some of the female FAs.
I tend to enjoy Jeb Brooks and Sanspotter for reviews though. And people will hate me for this but I like ThePointsGuy UK when 2 or 3 of them will ride AA/UA/DL with nearly the same itinerary and compare experiences.
Anyone else have good YT recommendations?
Jan, I quite like the 4-in-1 reviews on TPG UK as well!
I don’t watch videos, though, very often because I just prefer written reviews…but it seems that most prefer videos…
Sam, as others said, is such a shill. And isn’t the most objective either, since he does get his fair share of comps…but props to him I guess for pivoting from the world of finance to his blogging, I guess.
TPG has some good reviewers, but damn can they be super picky sometimes, especially the reviews on the main site. I remember one person dinged their EVA flight in business class because the FA didn’t pour their beer into the glass at the correct angle…
I like text reviews much better as well, with relevant photos. And such greats as FlyerTalk’s Seat2A, eightblack, etc. The TPG UK 4-in-1 are good. But I cannot stand most of the regular TPG reviews…. just so picky (oh, the cabin was about 2.6 degrees too cold for me and humidity about 4% too low) and their primary reviewers seem to have an alarming lack of understanding how the airline industry works for self-professed experts. And on the one end of the spectrum, Sam Chui makes me vomit a little bit in the back of my mouth.
This Cahill review as a bit cringe… I mean, who is he to tell a member of management (station manager) when they are or are not late for work? Maybe different definitions in different parts of the world, but at a station manager for a US carrier dealing with passengers was not really part of my job, nor would I be hanging out at the ticket counter as the company paid my salary to deal with airport authority, TSA, vendors, etc.
US carriers can relax because Cahill apparently keeps getting his visa application denied to come to the US.
Patrick Shea is decent, and the Simply Aviation guys do a great job covering both economy and premium class products.
Thanks I’ll check them out (again), I may have run into a few of their videos already
Agreed on Simply Aviation. They do great work!
Noel Philips is pretty good.
Absolutely agree on Noel. Plus he even took Greyhound coast to coast (on a second attempt after the first one failed) and found some redeeming qualities in it. I met Noel and his wife once… I left with a very favorable impression.
He has good content too, he compared UA/AA/DL F back-to-back-to-back which is so much easier to digest in a video format (and very informative too) than it would have been if it was an article/blog posts, or a series of such.
*btw Delta won* 😀
You can try NYC Flyer, Chris Jazz, AS Aviation., Alex Praglowski Aviation,
The DailyWoo will do an occasional travel day where he shows his whole day from car return through the airport and flight. It has been first class lately. You will have to search because that is not his regular video, but I like them.
Let me guess. The reason blogs add video content is because it provides them more $$$ since ads can be inserted into the video? While there are some exceptions, most readers do not like videos but would rather scan a page of text. Text is also searchable while videos are not. The only videos I generally view are “how to” videos to repair something.
Food poisoning often takes quite a well to develop and usually doesn’t hit you for hours after you ate the contaminated food. It is quite possible the airline had nothing to do with his stomach issues.
In all honestly people like this are just a waste on society. Provides nothing of value. He just wants cash via his videos or get companies to pay him to shrill for the company.
This is actually the way I feel too, but you and I are in the minority. You know what the most humbling thing was? When both my 96-year-old uncle and my 7-year-old son asked me if I knew Sam Chui because they love his videos. How humbling!
The point is not that the video ads are more profitable (though that may be true in some cases), but that video allows you to expand your audience. Heck, I should do TikTok too…but there are only 24 hours in a day!
Oh it’s more than just the videos… for most of these people it’s also Patreon where they have hundreds of people throwing $10-50 a month at them to see the videos in advance or to be on a WhatsApp chat group with the subject.
You gotta do you but influencers are odious swine at the best of times. Maybe you’ll be the exception. I won’t watch the videos for the same reasons rich mentions but good luck. I suppose you’re not declaring yourself the best travel blogger in the world like one BA blogger or killing off comments because you have no integrity like TPG so it could be worse.
“I’m working on adding a video component to Live And Let’s Fly…it will be review focused, but unique compared to the way Daniel Goz / Sam Chui / Josh Cahill compose their reviews. Stay tuned for details about that.”
I certainly hope this doesn’t indicate a shift towards the Instragram model, where you start putting most/all of your efforts into video while de-emphasizing written text with photos. Sadly, many of the blogs I’ve followed over the years have chosen this approach. I end up giving up on these sites, mainly because 1) I don’t like this video content and don’t watch it, and 2) I often visit your page and others for a quick 5-minute break at work, and non-work related videos are still largely verboten at the office. I understand if this is what you plan, as you have to run your business in the manner that gives you the highest ROI. Nonetheless, it would be unfortunate.
No chance. I love the written reports and I love to write.
I can’t figure out Josh Cahill’s accent. I am not sure where he is from.
Czech German.
A German national hot doxxed in Timor Leste. I’m surprised the embassy didn’t get involved. That’s serious stuff here.
Mathew took me 3 seconds. ;-).
Aljoscha Wendholt (born 17 June 1986) professionally known as Josh Cahill, is a German aviation vlogger, airline critic and blogger who presents airline reviews primarily through his YouTube channel.
Remember another commenter above said he is always trying to edit his Wikipedia page. Last week, that name wasn’t there…I bet he tries to remove it all the time.
Eek, we are just weeks apart. He’s aged better than I have! 😉
He is German, raised in the village of Mildenau in Saxony. He has a fake Australian accent and in one video in Kazakhstan he claimed that he struggled when speaking German, but in reality he is a native German speaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mbCB9U_gtE
Did he ever claim to be Australian?
The little shit should be banned from every airline. He’s despicable.
Like others have said Noel Phillips is pretty good. But I feel like a jerk watching him or anybody else who is flying just to create content. These people should at least stay a day or so wherever they go and check the place out so they’re not so blatantly dumping particulate air pollution to make a video and then turning around in two hours and flying right back.
I mean, I get it. Most of us fly for pleasure, drive a car, etc, etc, so maybe I’m a hypocrite here, but still, stay a day and visit the country at least. If for no other reason do I don’t go to hell for watching your content.
Mathew, I look forward to your videos – I enjoy both the written word and a YouTube video now and then. I particularly enjoy Noel Phillips, although his thumbnails and captions are pretty clickbaity.
Yeah what a little b*tch Cahill is. You can’t post videos like that, prominently whoring yourself to world and expect anonymity, especially from a Muslim state like Indonesia. It’s called FAFO.
Josh Cahill is not telling the whole story. “Josh Cahill” is an artist name, it is not his real name, and he is not really Australian as he claimed. There is an active campaign on Wikipedia where he tries to censor his real name and writes that he is Australian; having a pseudo is one thing, but actively trying to censor it screams fakeness, he is not as authentic as he claims.
In the Aero Dili flight, his check in took so long because he put Josh Cahill in his boarding pass, while his passport still provides his real civil name in Germany. The entire situation was totally his own fault, but he was still extremely aggressive to the poor station manager. This is like the Air China video where the situation was his own fault for failing to register when he used to live there, but he was still dramatic and demanded Air China to pay for his deportation flight.
What is his real name?
I read he has a Ukrainian name. Sorry don’t remember where. I don’t think his family are of German heritage.
Personally I enjoy Josh’s reviews, despite the fact that he’s comments are sometimes over the top. Each of the airline review “bloggers” have their own angle, which is understandable, given that they each need a unique approach. Josh flies obscure and small airlines as well as routes, way more often than all the others combined and so he is more likely to have not that great experiences. Kudos to him though for doing this and he often lauds airlines I would never dream of flying. Bottom line is that each passenger should get a quality product and experience on an airline, whether you fly economy or first class and that starts from before the flight. Every passenger deserves value for their hard earned money, so I think his business model is exactly the right one for him. And I hope he gets it right to have this shameless airline banned from flying to Singapore.
Very reasonable position.
I have more respect for Josh than any sort of criticism. I respect what he’s done. I do think the clickbait is of the wrong type.
OMG HE’S SO CUTE. AND he was talking about his package last week! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfvmgM9WGPU&t=534s
That’s pretty hilarious considering exactly the same thing happened to me at LAX last week. Lol. I’m going to write about it.
John and Sebastian please take note from your fellow German.
Influencreich is real. The industry is starting a resistance.
I like to watch travel related videos but got tired of some of the clickbait like you mentioned.
One vlogger has a video titled something like ‘JetBlue, worst journey of my life’. I watched it thinking something must of happened on his JFK-LHR flight. The vlogger was in economy and everything was normal; he even put a plug in for JetBlue giving him a Mint ticket so he could try it. I’m thinking where’s the ‘worst’ coming from. It turns out after arriving at LHR the trains were on strike and he had difficulty getting home from there. Anyone seeing the video thumbnail would think he had a problem with JetBlue; I doubt JetBlue will be in a hurry to give him a free Mint ticket.
An excellent example.
An aviation vlogger who does their job by calling out airlines for their incompetence is overly dramatic?
I was not familiar with Josh Cahill–I am now thanks this blog–but I have been reading your blog “Live and Let’s Fly” for a while now. Most of the stories you write are well written “news reports” based on information you have gathered from multiple sources and you write your “stories” from from the safety and comfort of your own home.
Vloggers like Josh appear do the physical work of going to far and remote places that most of us don’t have the time or means to go to and record their whole travel experience from arrival to departure. It appears that Josh does what most of us are afraid to do, and that is speaking up and calling airlines out on their bullshit when the situation arises. Regarding the situation with Aero Dili, Josh repeatedly pointed out that despite their shortcomings, it’s a new carrier and that he hopes they improve in the future. The retaliation he received was uncalled for and other aviation bloggers including you should stand with him in solidarity rather than throw him under the bus by calling him “dramatic” and to not piss of airlines–even when they are wrong–because they may come after you.
waiting for that east timor review, year is almost up..
Not going to happen in 2024. Hopefully in 2025.