Gonna be honest I think this should have been a movie. It felt poorly paced and bloated, but the content was great at its core. Of course, then it would have been indistinguishable from the dozen other hijack movies but here we are.
I was thinking this at first too but I think the format worked.
What ended up appealing to me was the attempt at making it feel as if it was unfolding in real time.
It was similar to the feel of “24” but they condensed it to a 7 hour flight.