South Africa
United seems to be on a roll expanding service to Africa the past few years, with today's addition of a second flight to Cape Town, this time from Washington, DC. I thought, being the second flight to serve Cape Town from the USA for United, that this inaugural wouldn't be as big a deal as the first (Newark to Cape Town (EWR-CPT), started in December 2019), but holy crap I was wrong. Not only was the South African Ambassador Nomaindiya Cathleen Mfeketo in attendance, but in a first for me, United Airlines president Brett Hart was here as well.
Not sure if the flight was 100% full on the way out, but even if it wasn't, closed to 257 passengers filled N24979, a two and a half year old Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, for the 14 hour 18 minute, 7,934 mile flight from IAD to CPT.
I lucked out and got a shockingly affordable buy-up offer from Premium Plus (premium economy) to Polaris on-check in 24 hours before, so I settled into seat 8D after all the speeches and pictures and excitement. A penguin was waiting at my seat, along with special inaugural IAD-CPT flight pajamas, I think a t-shirt, and commemorative flyer/menu. Not sure how many other passengers realized this was the inaugural flight, but two people sitting right across from me had gotten cheap buy-up offers as well and were also very excited.
An almost on-time take-off lead to a distinctly underwhelming (a terribly bland chicken) meal service that even the pre-made ice cream sundae and cheese plate couldn't rescue. However, mid-flight, I found some of the flight attendants generously offering to share the inaugural flight cake (fruit tart) that that had been loaded-- much appreciated!