Batty on Air

You wake up at two in the morning. Wide awake. No reason. And your first thought is: something is wrong with me. What if nothing is wrong with you? In this episode, Batty digs into one of the most surprising stories in human history — how people slept for thousands of years before electric light changed everything. The historian who found over 2,000 references to a forgotten sleep pattern. The nin...

Everyone knows "My Way." It's Sinatra. An American classic. A song about a life lived on one's own terms. It is also, in every meaningful sense, a French song about a failing relationship — rewritten by a Canadian on a transatlantic flight, recorded by a man from Hoboken, and performed most magnificently by an Italian from Modena who sounds like he's winning an argument with...

"Come quickly — I am tasting stars!" It's the most romantic quote in the history of champagne. It was also written by a marketing department in 1821 — more than a century after Dom Pérignon died. The real story: a brilliant winemaker who spent his career trying to stop bottles from exploding. Workers in iron masks. The English getting there first. And the world's most famous cham...

At some point, you have to ask yourself: why am I still doing this the hard way? EVA Air. Vienna to Bangkok. Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A flat bed that is actually flat. A pyjama set that arrives approximately four minutes after boarding. An early morning arrival so quiet that Bangkok's immigration resembles a library. And bags on the carousel in Vienna before you've finished reading the form....

Everyone knows the croissant is French. It isn't. In this episode: an Austrian pastry, a Viennese artillery officer with a bakery in Paris, Marie Antoinette (probably innocent), and the Ottoman army that tried to conquer Vienna in 1683 — and may have accidentally invented breakfast for the entire Western world. The French perfected it. The Austrians invented it. The Ottomans inspired the shape...

It arrived in a box. With a ribbon. The ribbon was unnecessary and entirely effective. This is the story of Batty and the American Express Platinum Card — the seduction, the lounge access, the quiet discovery of foreign transaction fees on every purchase made outside Austria, and the slow, elegant removal of benefits while the annual fee moved enthusiastically in the other direction. It ends with...

Before Koh Samui had traffic jams, it had a dirt road called Chaweng and an airport that was, technically, a hut. With a manual scale. Batty was there. This episode is about what happens when you find a place before the world does — and what it means when that place finds a hotel that knows your name, remembers your drink, and once opened its doors during a global pandemic on an empty island. A tr...

Meet Batty. Private pilot. Austria-based. Perpetually en route to somewhere better. And yes, she has opinions about your espresso — nineteen grams, ninety-three degrees, twenty-eight seconds — and she will explain why yours is wrong. Episode one is the introduction: who Batty is, what this podcast covers, and a preview of what's coming. Airlines. Hotels. Fine dining. And a recurring segment wh...