Review: United’s Inaugural Flight to Morocco In Polaris Business Class-Newark to Marrakech (EWR-RAK)
Trip Photos: A Day and a half in Marrakesh and an evening in Doha
Review: Oasis Lounge Royal Air Maroc Marrakech (RAK)
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Review: Qatar Airways First and Business Class Arrival Lounge
Review: Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge – The Garden Doha (DOH)
Review: Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge Doha (DOH)
Review: Qatar Airways A350-1000 Qsuites Business Class: Doha to Dallas (DOH-DFW)

YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Newark to Marrakesh
YOUTUBE: Qatar Airways: Marrakesh to Casablanca to Doha
YOUTUBE: Qatar Airways: Doha to Dallas

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One of the many joys of flying inaugural flights is the celebrations and people that gather from all around to be there for the flight.

We started our journey by giving a quick visit to the Polaris Lounge.

There was a sign waiting in the Polaris Lounge to highlight the new route that was starting and that we’d be flying today.

For anyone who is curious, here’s a look at the menu that was on display in the Polaris lounge’s dining section.

I had a glass of champagne to start.

I generally like to keep my Polaris Lounge consumption light before flight, so I had 2 of the small plates. I had the salad below which was alright.

I also had a cheese plate that I forgot to photograph but it was decent.

The one thing that I can never skip in a polaris lounge is their chocolate chip skillet cookie, and boy was that good. Although it’s interesting, I feel like as the years have gone on, it’s gotten smaller and smaller, but each bite still packs that same sweetness and taste as before.

And after a quick shower, and a little more recording, off we go to the gate for the celebrations!

The setup was in the area of gate C121, one of the gates in EWR that afford space for hosting an inaugural event. You can even see our aircraft in the back that arrived from Nice a while before.

One thing that I appreciate about United is that they take a lot of pride and effort into the launch of a new flight. Most other airlines don’t put this kind of effort into new route launches.

There was a setup with some local Moroccan delights as well as a part of the celebrations

Eventually the speeches began from a few pertinent people, one of which included someone from United’s Newark team.

And then of course, Patrick Quayle who is United’s SVP of Global Route Network.

Shortly after that was the classic ribbon cutting ceremony, as is tradition for new routes. This included a few people:

• Patrick Quayle: SVP Global Route Network & Alliances
• Matt Stevens: SVP International Route Network,
• The Flight deck crew & Cabin Crew of the flight
• The deputy mayor of Newark
• a few other pertinent individuals

There was even someone who dressed like Patrick did in the route reveal video when this route was initially announced.

And of course, I was lucky enough to catch Patrick for a quick picture and chat as well

Eventually boarding was soon to begin relevant media people were boarding one day while I was waiting in the pre-boarding lane.

EWR-RAK
Boeing 767-300ER
24 October 2024

Upon boarding, there were already some plastic wine glasses waiting which the crew would use to serve Business Class passengers some sparkling wine and water.

At every polaris seat waiting for us was the usual Polaris goodies, but then also a whole bunch of inaugural specific merch. We’ll have a closer look at these in just a minute.

As a reminder, the 767’s polaris cabin is slightly different from the 787/777 Polaris cabin.  The seats are the same, but the layout is slightly different.

The middle seats are not quite aligned like they are on the 787 and 777, but rather it’s staggered on the 767.

So as far as couples are concerned, there really is no good “duo seat”, but the seats on their own are pretty decent.

The window side seats are the same, however, across United’s entire Polaris fleet. You have the seats like the one below that are more private and tucked away towards the window. These are found in the odd numbered rows.

Then you have the even numbered window seats, which are a a little less private, and pointing out towards the aisle, but still comfortable. This seat below was my seat for the flight: 12L.

Waiting at our seat was all the Polaris fun. Below you’ll find:

• Items specific to the Inaugural flight
  • Welcome note from Patrick Quayle
  • A Marrakesh themed postcard (For the inaugural)
  • A Polaris Polar Bear
  • a Newark-Marrakesh boarding pass
  • A giant 2 sided poster of a man’s face
    • not sure what the purpose of this one was, but we’ll take it
• Normal Polaris Items
  • Pillow
  • Gel cooling pilow
  • Blanket
  • Duvet

The crew even came around offering to put mattress toppers on people’s seats for those that wanted to rest early. At just 7 hours, 2 min, the flight isn’t super long, so the crew set up people for rest for those who wanted it.

United Polaris has some of the best bedding in business class in my opinion and while that works out great when you are resting, it always leaves the problem of where to store all the Polaris amenities. The seat itself isn’t overflowing with a ton of storage space. What I generally do is that I will keep these things in the overhead bin, where there’s usually excess space in Polaris.

Let’s check out the seat.

With the even numbered seat that I had, it’s not alwaya a guarantee that the small wall space you have will line up with the window. So if you have no choice but an even numbered row, and you’d like a window, row 12 is a great candidate.

There’s a side table to keep items during the flight like drinks, or electronic devices, but it is sleek and glossy, so I’d avoid keeping anything here during takeoff and landing.

There’s an ancient remote as well which you can use to control the inflight entertainment, but you really don’t need to.

Next to that is also a universal power port and the headphone jack. Do note that there is also a USB-A port right below the power port.

There’s a smaller storage space above the seat where there was a water bottle waiting at every seat. There’s also a pair of noise cancelling headphones which are pretty comfortable.

With a click, the compartment does lock.

There’s also an adjustible reading light.

In front of you is the TV as well as a storage space for phones and other smaller items. Another thing to note is the second USB port to the right of the storage compartment.

To your side will be seat controls, which are pretty intuitive.

Soon enough a crew member came around with pre-departure beverage choices of water and sparkling wine and I went with the latter.

We also got special inaugural edition pajamas for the flight. Now do note that normally, this route isn’t eligible for United’s usual pajamas due to the flight length. But for this special occasion we got a special pair.

Shortly after that, Patrick Quayle himself came around with the menu for the flight. United rolled out a new design for their menus which have a sleek black cover with multiple pages as opposed to the single front and back menu United had for the entire post covid era. I really like these menus.

Alright let’s take a quick look at the seat.

Every Polaris Seat has a small storage compartment on the side. Inside of this you’ll typically find a water bottle waiting for you, and definitely the headphones available for the flight.

There’s also a side counter that comes with every seat where you can keep things on the side.

 

I always enjoy the little light that comes at every polaris seat. This can be turned on and off from the seat control panel.

Once everyone was onboard, the crew dimmed the lights. One unfortunate thing about the 767 is that since its older, there’s no mood lighting of any sort, but rather the cabin just becomes really dark. The overhead lighting at some of these angled seats like the one I had doesn’t fully capture the area you sit in.

Eventually we pushed back pretty on time and had a quick taxi to the end of runway 22L and had a nice takeoff roll.

As always, when you takeoff on the north facing runways in EWR and sit on the right side, you’ll get some great Manhattan views. Unfortunately we were a little blocked by the wing, but the views were still good for what we were able to catch.

Alright, let’s take a look at the menu that we got.

Let the image below be a further example of how dark it was. Even with the overhead light on, it was hard to capture good quality menu pictures.

Anyways with all seriousness,  here’s the full menu:

This was honestly a solid and incredibly promising menu.

The inflight entertainment had a good selection of movies and TV shows and I like that United’s screens are generally pretty responsive. Interestingly, the 767s still seem to have the older IFE’s  in flight  polaris software whereas the 787s and 777s seems to have the newer stuff.

 

The lavatories were pretty standard.

There were a few different facial creams and sprays available for use if you desired.

It was dinner time, or so I thought.  To release the tray table, push it in and you should feel it unlock.

It’s also foldable and movable so you can push it back and get up mid meal if you’d like.

Unfortunately, this was not the ideal weather for an inaugural flight. We were flying around thunderstorms for probably the first 2 hours of the flight and so there wasn’t much service going on here. And for a flight that’s already just 7 hours, that’s a lot of time lost.

Once the crew were able to get started on their service, crew came around and took orders.

The drink cart came around and I went with champagne and everyone got nuts. These were not United’s ordinary nuts. There was some tangy glaze on them and I quite liked it.

A lot of people opted for the express dining option so I wanted to see what all of that looked like. The appetizer there was the dip trio which ran out by the time they got to my seat, but I didn’t really mind.

Now one thing I will point out was that unfortunately for this flight, none of the ice cream options will be there. That includes both of the ice cream sundae options, or the intermezzo sorbet. I was really looking forward to that one since United’s never had that on the menu before.

The reason for this was that United had not yet figured out a storage place in Marrakesh for its cutlery and plating. So, they did not have any plates or silverware for the return flight. Therefore, they had to double cater this flight and the return in Newark itself. Unfortunately, the sundae cart was collateral in order to make room for the double catering. I definitely wish I was able to see Patrick Quayle coming down the aisle making sundaes for everyone, but I guess this will have to wait for another time.

All that to say, this is why we were all given our appetizer tray with the dessert on it already. There would be no sundae, so everyone had the same dessert option. So, like a lot of other airlines, the dessert comes with the appetizer. We’ll go into the details later

The duck came with goat cheese and dried figs, and it was pretty good. The goat cheese was a nice addon to the flavor of the duck.

The salad was fashionably dry but the lemon vinaigrette made it enjoyable

The crew also came around with bread and we had a few different options to choose from and I chose garlic bread.

The service was honestly quite slow. I put that on the inaugural flight, and the crew were probably busy entertaining other passengers, but it’s still an observation nonetheless. Based on my photo timestamps, from the time I finished my appetizer, it was about 25 minutes before I got my main course.

That said, the lamb was absolutely bloody delicious. I expected the rack of lamb to be on bone, but I was glad it wasn’t for the convenience of eating on the plane.

The cook of the lamb was also perfect for me. It went well with the nice yogurt sauce on top of it. Overall, it was quite an enjoyable meal I have to say.

Thankfully, dessert was already on my tray from appetizers so I didn’t waste any time going straight to it. This was a coconut lemongrass panna cotta and it was the only dessert item that was not a frozen item.

It was nice and tasty, but not too sweet which is just the way I like it. The raspberry was tart, but the panna cotta was sweet so it was the perfect balance.

At this point, I was pretty full, and the crew felt bad that it took them a long time for service, but I was very much fine with it givent that this was an inaugural flight and I knew they’d be busy. That said, service took a while, there were no proactive drink refills at all beyond the first round of service, or anything of that sort. We’ll write this off as a one off.

One might think that we’d have a long flight since we are flying to Africa. The reality is that Morocco is as far at the west end of Africa as you can get. The flight is barely longer than flying to London.

Pretty much everyone in the cabin was sleeping at this point, so I decided to do the same.

I was quite tired, so I knocked out quickly for the 2.5 hour nap. I forgot to take pictures of the bedding, but it’s a standard flat bed with United’s nice signature gel cooling pillow and the mattress.

After about 2.5 hours of sleeping/napping, I woke up as we were crossing the Azores, meaning we were getting close to Marrakesh.

The crew eventually came around with hot towels for the flight.

If you were interested in midflight snacks on this short flight, these were available for you.

Breakfast eventually came, and as the menu said, the options were between banana bread putting, and egg whites and I chose the latter.

This was a breakfast I haven’t seen since a polaris flight I took during Covid and it was surreal to see.

The egg pastry was flaky and delicious and the tomato sauce with it also added some nice flavor. The sausages were standard breakfast sausages. But this was an excellent breakfast.

The fruits were fresh and crisp.

Entering a French-speaking city, I would be embarrassed to call that a croissant.

Eventually we entered Morocco and I got views of the the Moroccan countryside and the Atlas mountains.

Soon enough our descent began into Marrakesh.

Before we wrap up this flight, let me show you the amenity kit. It was pretty standard and there’s nothing particular about this one that drew attention to the inaugural flight.

There was a low ceiling of 1000 feet over Marrakesh today. This means we weren’t getting any good Marrakesh view until we were close to touching down.

We pulled into our gate and there was a nice crowd waiting for us. This included media, local dignitaries, and locals.

Right inside the arrivals section, there was a setup with local sweets and juices available for all passengers which was pretty cool.

Wow what a party this flight was. United sure knows how to set up and promote an inaugural flight.

At the end of the day, this route has huge potential to be successful. There’s a lot of excitement from both ends, and I can see the flight filling up for many dates way in advance. This was a smart route, a well planned route, and Im excited for what the future holds for this route.

That said, I think the menu is way too big for a flight of this length. The menu very well could’ve been an inaugural special, and if it was, then I retract my statement. But for a 7 hour flight, dinner and breakfast are sufficient with some of the finger foods, but there’s no need for any of the hot mid flight snacks.

The service on this flight was understandably slow due to the weather and just general inaugural festivities, but that goes back to emphasize the fact that this is a relatively quick flight, and that first service has to finish quickly in order to give people sufficient time to rest.

All in all, United is an excellent way to fly, this route is an awesome addition, and I cant wait to see this route grow as time goes on. This was a great flight to be on and I’m super stoked that I got to be a part of the first North American commercial flight to Marrakesh!