Try a bunch. The Sony WH-1000XM3 is probably the best overall choice.
I have them and I must say flying with them does change the game. I am a bit of headphone junkie myself. It is not even funny or practical to have that many headphones. Anyway I have the following type of headphones:
1. Noise isolating over the ear (Senheiser). They do isolate noise quite well but are quite heavy. Also they are wired so they are better to be used in office/home than for travel.
2. Shure earbuds. They are not noise canceling but have good noise isolation because they are earbuds that you plug into your ear. They are portable and sound nice (as they are in ear monitoring solution for performers). I have two cables for them - regular 3.5 mm jack and Bluetooth connector so I can use them both ways. However they do not work for flights IMO. I get slight ear pain/tension when using earbuds for longer periods of time. I get the appeal because of the portability but with the way I travel (usually need connecting flights so it takes like 5-6 hours) I find them not a good choice.
3. Wired Sony earbuds that when combined with Sony MP3 player have NC. Basically as above. Good noise cancelling but earbuds do have their side effects when using longer.
4. Sony WH-1000XM3. The best choice for me. Yeah they take more space but the NC they offer is awesome. They are light enough. No clamping force and no ear pain or tension. Compared to the monitoring ones (Senheiser and Shure) have more bass and it took me some time to get used to it, but the sound quality is good enough for the music I listen to. Plus my phone is Sony and this way I use LDAC codec which does change the audio quality.
5. Few other Sonys (over ear or earbuds) and Philips but I won't get into details as they are not relevant for this discussion.
I have not tried NC earbuds but I am not sure that it makes a lot of sense. Most earbuds are noise isolating enough to be honest due to the fact that they go directly in your ear. I personally would get either good quality regular earbuds (that isolate enough) or over the ear NC headphones.
If you want Bluetooth earbuds and want something that is easily integrated with iPhone than yes AirPods make sense. As the first two models are not earbuds, the third one is the only one that makes sense for flights. I assume that even without the NC on, it should work adequate as it has physical noise isolation.
