With a 12 hour flight looming it was time to look at some modern noise cancelling headphones.
A local big box retailer has both the Bose Ultra and the Sony 5 wired up for casual listening.
In a busy noisy shop there is no contest - the Bose are much better at cancellation. (Particularly the upper mids and highs.)
Easy solution buy the Bose.
Things got a little complicated when Emma had to fly some weeks prior to myself organising an escape from the shackles of my employer.
Off went the Bose.

Revisited the store and again compared the Bose and the Sony products - again the Bose noise cancelling is quite obviously superior.
Problem for me is the Bose ear pads are too small for my ears - unlikely to be comfortable for a 12 hour flight.
With time short the Sony product was purchased.

During the flight the Sony 5s performed their noise cancelling function well.
(Ignoring the glitches and drop outs)

Moving forwards in time.
We are both back in NZ and the Bose and Sony products are being compared sonically and for comfort.
Musically the Bose seems cleaner with more bass extension.
The Sony has more muffled/relaxed delivery is not awful and will suit some people.
It does not seem to matter if the phones are cabled or wireless  the Sony is several steps behind the Bose (and my other phones) .
If is matters the Sony build quality seems well below that of the Bose

Personally I hate wearing headphones and the majority of my music systems consist of  what are considered resolving monitors..

Somewhat amused that most reviews praise the Sony and place them at the pinnacle.

Now I am looking for a set of earpads that will fit the Bose Ultra while being 5 or more mm longer than the standard pads.

The comments above are totally subjective and reference both Emma's and my own observations...

I have the Sony 1000X5 and find them 'fine' for flying, but ultimately being in a plane with my ears popping with altitude changes, means I largely ignore their sonic performance when I'm in the sky. The sound quality when not flying is 'fine' for what they are, but I do appreciate their microphones and calling abilities so I do use them for V/C's when working at my desk.
The app... is god awful.
Too intrusive, firmware updates take close to an hour and if it doesn't have a network connection (ie flying domestically) it loses functionality.
I have, however, flown with Focal Bathys and while the N/C isn't as good as the Sony's, the audio playback performance absolutely leaves them for dead.
Plus you get to lord it over the other 'all plastic' headphone plebs in the boarding queue with the Focal's on top of your nogin - they really do look the business.
The app is simpler, but I quite like the hearing test / modifier and find the comfort to be excellent.

Note - I haven't used Bose noise cancelling since the '25s, but I had issues with them where they would crackle when I turned my head to the side to look out the plane window... so I decided to avoid any new versions for that reason.