Annual Family Trips to Japan (1992 – 2005)

I was born (and grew up) in Slovakia to a Slovak mom and a Japanese dad. The latter meant having one set of grandparents in Japan. That, in turn, meant visiting the country nearly every summer from when I was just over a year old.

Each and every year, I would look forward to the family trip more and more. I was, of course, excited to visit my grandparents and to spend time in Japan, a country where I moved later on in my life and that I live in to this day. But, I also couldn’t wait to get onboard a plane and get cozy in my seat for a dozen or so hours!

My first trip to Japan (one I do not remember, of course, as I was just one year old) was on Austrian Airlines on a direct flight from Vienna to Tokyo Narita via Moscow. Other airlines we flew to Japan during my childhood included Air France, Alitalia, British Airways, Finnair, and Swissair (later Swiss). The long-haul portions of our trips were mostly operated by 747s and MD-11s.

One of the earliest aviation memories I have is from a Swissair MD-11 flight to or from Tokyo. I remember sitting down in a first class seat before disembarking and thinking to myself how cool it would be to fly in that kind of seat one day. To this day, the MD-11 is my favorite aircraft type.

Hopping Around European Gateways (2006 – 2009)

As I grew older and information became more widely available on the internet, I started researching the airlines and aircraft we would be flying on the family trips. This led me to many aviation websites including Jetphotos.net and Airliners.net.

Seeing many great aircraft photos on these websites, it became clear what I wanted for my 15th birthday: a camera with “a lot of zoom.” With the new camera (Panasonic FZ-7) in my hand, I got my dad to take me to Vienna Airport (the nearest major airport to my home) without a ticket, just to spend some time watching aircraft. And, I was hooked…

For the next few years, I tried to visit airports around Europe for plane spotting whenever possible.

Sometimes that meant taking an overnight bus from Nitra where I was living at the time to Prague in the neighboring Czech Republic. Other times that meant flying on Ryanair from Bratislava to Hahn Airport and then taking bus to Frankfurt Airport. Fun fact: the bus was hundreds of times more expensive than the 0.01 EUR flights that Ryanair offered at the time.

My First “Solo” Long-Haul Trips (2007 – 2009)

In 2007, I flew to Japan on my own for the first time. On that trip, I got my first DSLR and spent considerable time at what I now consider to be my home airports, Tokyo Haneda and Narita, for the first time.

In 2008 and 2009, I visited Japan on my own again, traversing the country – and mainly its airports – all the way from Sapporo in the north to Fukuoka in the south using Japan Rail Pass. In those years, I also flew transatlantic for the first time, visiting Phoenix and Los Angeles in 2008 and Washington D.C. in 2009.

While ultimately I mainly ended up sticking with photography, during this period, I also experimented with a variety of other aviation-related hobbies. I shared my spotting “logs” with other enthusiasts in forums, actively collected safety cards, and I even started two (terribly looking) websites which could be considered the predecessors of KN Aviation.

First Years of Living in Japan (2010 – 2014)

In 2010, I moved to Japan for university and I have been living in the country since then. This meant two things: I could now easily access Tokyo and other airports in the country and I had to fly a lot if I wanted to see my family in Europe as much as possible.

With that, I started visiting Haneda and Narita Airports regularly, expanding my photo collection. I also took the occasional domestic trip to airports like Osaka Itami and Fukuoka in search of aircraft types and photo angles and backgrounds that couldn’t be had in Tokyo.

Flying back to Europe at least once or twice a year, I also grew more and more interested in airline products. While I have always wanted to fly on as many different airlines and aircraft types as possible, that desire grew even stronger over the years.

Sharing My Stories on KN Aviation (2015 – Present)

All of the above culminated in me launching KN Aviation in 2015.

As with many similar things, my thinking went like this: if I am taking these flights anyways, and if I want to document them for myself, why not do so on a website that other people can access too. The very first article on this website covers my flight on the now-non-existent Skymark Airlines A330.

Since then, I published countless other flight and airport lounge reviews, air travel guides, and other articles. I also had the privilege of contributing to a variety of digital and print media and organizing a couple of tours for aviation enthusiasts.

Starting this website even led me to having chances to fly on two now-retired NASA research aircraft, the SOFIA flying telescope and the DC-8 flying laboratory. Those were without a doubt the two most unforgettable flights of my life!