Spain
Starting the day in Los Angeles for United Airlines' inaugural flight from Newark, NJ to Santiago de Compostela, Spain means a very long day.
My upgrade cleared on LAX-EWR, which was much appreciated, and United actually served a very decent breakfast onboard. Plus it was a 787-9 so was able to lie-flat and sleep for a bit, which was pretty clutch towards surviving the rest of the day.
Arrival in Newark was at Terminal A, but it's a quick and easy air-side bus ride between terminals, and some good plane spotting as always. By the time I arrived at gate C105, the pre-departure festitivies were already in full swing, with a full troop of musicians and dancers performing, and most of what would end up being 14 or so frequent fliers/inaugural flight chasers already at the gate. Melindres (Spanish donut holes with dippoing chocolate), as well as bread with cheese and honey, were available for a local flair on snacks, and speeches were appropriately on-point, MC'd by Jon Gooda, United Airlines vice president for Newark Airport. David Kinzelman, Chief Customer Officer and SVP Airport Operations, United Airlines, the Spanish council for tourism (I did not get his name), Sr. Arturo Lopez Dominguez, Honorary Vice-Consul of Spain in New York." />
Sr. Arturo Lopez Dominguez, Honorary Vice-Consul of Spain in New York, and Ligia DeFreitas, Deputy Mayor of Newark, were all very excited and on-brand for this brand-new flight to Spain, emphasizing United's numerous flights to Spain (six destinations!), and always hoping for one more.
Boarding N17310 for United's newest and longest 737 MAX 8 route was quite celebratory, with Captain Miles Morgan (who also did EWR-GOH) in command, and for a change, both David Kinzelman and Leon Goldberg (managing director of sales, APAC, United Airlines) onboard. Benjamin Din, a fellow frequent flier and very serious #AVgeek ended up seated next to Leon, and he even collected a shout-out during the speeches for this flight being his 1,000,000th mile on United-- congrats, Ben!
Inaugural flight swag included the uusal welcome letter, menu, mini-poster, stickers, keychain, and teddy bear from United, Amanda's homemade wooden airplane ornament, and Warren's both commemorative pin and scallop shell. Turns out the flight number, United 222, supposedly commemorates the number of distance that Catholic pilgrims make on the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James) trail to Santiago de Compostela's cathedral. Was great to catch up with many familiar faces, including Warren and his parents, Amanda and her parents, Scott, Riya, Rohit, Thomas, Mark, Gustavo, photographer/influencer Eric Rubens, in-flight supervisor Dessa, and a few new faces as well. Leon in particular seems to be flourishing since his promotion-- can't wait to see what else United has in store for the Asia-Pacific market.
Food on board seemed to have a bit of extra effort put into it-- the seabass was a generous and tasty portion, although John said the almond cake wasn't quite right. Opted not to go too crazy on dessert either, stuck with the Maison Alyzee truffles, since the EWR-SCQ flight, while very long for a 737 MAX 8, is not that long compared to what I'm used to, and I did want to get a nap in somewhere.