Poker Player Flies Himself From Scotland to USA for the 2026 World Cup

It has been 28 long years since Scotland last qualified for the FIFA World Cup. Thousands of the team’s fans, known affectionately as The Tartan Army, have already made the grueling 10+ hour trip across the Atlantic to watch their beloved team in action on international football’s biggest stage. But two fans, including poker player Fraser MacIntyre, have embarked on a journey that seems like complete madness.

MacIntyre is a man of many talents. He has over $1 million in live poker tournament cashes, including a 214th-place finish in the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event worth $60,000. The proud Scotsman is also a successful businessman, who, you may recall, acquired Main Event Travel back in 2014.

In December 2022, Scottish football team Ayr United appointed MacIntyre as the club’s vice chairman. It so happens that MacIntyre also has a private pilot’s license, and it is his love of flying that has seen MacIntyre hit the headlines.

MacIntyre and Ayr United Chairman, David Smith, have often flown to their team’s away games, but this latest escapade is off the charts. The football-crazy duo decided it would be fun to fly MacIntyre’s Cirrus SR22T single-engine propeller airplane from Scotland to the United States so they could watch Scotland in action during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The aircraft has a top speed of 213 knots, a maximum cruising altitude of 25,000 feet, and a range of approximately 1,000 nautical miles. With numbers like that, it is no surprise the high-flying duo split their journey into several parts.

Flying under the call sign GJRSH but dubbing the aircraft “Ayr Force One,” MacIntyre and Smith set off from Prestwick airport in Glasgow, Scotland, on June 9 and headed for Reykjavik in Iceland. The following day, they flew to Kulusuk, Greenland, before heading to Iqaluit and then to Goose Bay, Canada, on June 11.

Today, June 12, they are making their way to the United States. At the time of writing, they had been flying for approximately two hours and were not far from crossing the Canadian border, according to the airplane tracking site FlightRadar24. The pair hope to be landed and refreshed in time to watch Scotland face Haiti at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Boston, on June 13 at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

_{Images courtesy of Fraser MacIntyre’s Facebook page}

Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.