Israel: May 2018
From the dimly lit gate area at Ben Gurion International Airport into a shiny new United 777-300ER for the flight home.
Managed to get upgraded to the new Polaris business class, which is a pretty competitive hard product (seat, IFE, bedding, etc.), and unfortunately a truly awful soft product. To be fair it wasn't the food that was that bad, but the service. t'was so bad, the less said about it, the better... o_0
In comparison with the horrible service (not merely indifferent or incompetent-- those would have been an improvement!) on the TLV-SFO flight, the brand-new United Polaris Lounge at SFO was gorgeous, with seven (?) good-sized seating areas, actual edible buffet food, shower rooms, nap rooms, and a super rare sight domestically: made-to-order dining. The last is clearly a work in progress, but to see so much effort from a domestic carrier on this is impressive.