United Airlines: Boeing 737 MAX 8 inaugural flight

United Airlines

737 MAX 8 inaugural

Busy day at Houston Intercontinental Airport.

Gate C3 awaiting United's newest airplane.

Celebrating 40 years of United's frequent flier program.

Was a giant pain to figure out United's 737 MAX 8 inaugural flight, but this is it-- flight 789 to Vegas!

Shiny new airplane, just arrived from maintenance at LAX.

And now pulled all the way up to the gate.

Being swarmed by United employees.

United's in-house media were all over, too.

Ground crew checking out the shiny new 737 MAX 8.

United flight 789, Houston to Las Vegas, almost ready to board.

Tractor brought up, must mean it's time to board.

Most of the passengers were oblivious to the new airplane commotion until they showed up to the gate.

3 airplane geeks on this flight. 1x GS, 1x employee, and myself.

Big sign in United's current logo and color scheme.

Same seats as before in first class, but slightly different color scheme.

Hard to believe this seat design is nearly 6 years old.

Bulkhead seats (row 7) have massive legroom.

737 MAX 8 gets a purple instead of blue color scheme in Economy Plus.

737 MAX fleet has overhead bins fit up to six bags when used properly. Not that anyone used them properly.

Row 11. Not bad.

Purple actually works well.

Interior shot.

The last 5 rows of Economy Plus, with regular economy behind it.

Massive 69.4 inch (176cm) engine fan, the bottom of which is just 17 inches (43cm) off the ground.

USB and 3.5mm. But no USB-C?

Very familiar air vent design. Quite stiff as they were literally brand new.

Retractable overhead monitor at the bulkhead.

Pretty nice 10" screens, Panasonic IFE.

33" or so of leg room seems to be the standard for extra-legroom economy these days.

Safety video seems about the same, but maybe it was updated?

Soaring among the clouds.

Detail shot of the wing and advanced split winglets.

Bluetooth was downright easy to use.

Tray table is laughably small.

Well okay. A 14" laptop, while it hangs off the edges, does kinda fit.

Final approach over Las Vegas.

Some iconic hotels on the strip.

IFE seems to be displaying the previous (LAX-IAH), current (IAH-LAS), and future (LAS-IAH) all at once?

Pretty sure it's not 110mph head winds while parked at the gate, hopefully not 174 degrees F either?!?

And with that, United's 737 MAX 8 inaugural flight is over.

Arrived in Las Vegas.

Aside from a gate announcement, no other fanfare.

Welcome to Las Vegas.

United finally received their first Boeing 737 MAX 8 this summer. The inaugural revenue flight went through a butt-ton of schedule changes; instead of being flight 408 the day before (15 July), it ended up being flight 789 one day later (16 July). Heck in the 48 hours up to the inaugural flight, the schedule changed at least three times.

But being an airplane geek who'd just done United's 737 MAX 9 return to service a few months ago, well, why not do the 737 MAX 8, too?

Managed to get super lucky through all the schedule changes the last two days and ended up on the inaugural flight. Even got a chance to talk to the ferry crew, fresh from Hawaii and California the past few days, who said it was a wonderful plane to fly. Not much in the way of other airplane geeks on the flight, and as far as media, only United's internal staff were in attendance. Most passengers had no idea the flight was anything special until the gate agents and the flight crew made a few announcements, including a Panasonic representative onboard to help troubleshoot any user issues with the new seat-back entertainment.

Onboard experience looked to be the same in first class as most other United 737's, including the 737 MAX 9. In the back, the 54 Economy Plus seats got a new purple color scheme that actually worked out, while the 96 economy seats got the same. The 10" screens, Bluetooth (!!!), and in-seat power at every seat all worked well, and the internet, while still not fast, was a solid improvement over the previous system. Hopefully the 737 MAX 9 fleet will get the new IFE too, although I suspect much of that fleet is going to stay in the current, screen-deprived configuration. Only real complaint was the tray tables, which were on the small side.

Had a smooth flight from Houston to Las Vegas (IAH-LAS), and while no one will call the 737 a quiet airplane, the 737 MAX is definitely improved over the previous-generation 737NG. Those big CFM LEAP-1B engines and the split winglets are kind of cool to see, too.

Not quite three hours later, and to not much fanfare other than another flight crew announcement, the inaugural flight was completed and arrived safely in scorching hot Las Vegas.