Join me on this Inaugural flight as I take you through the pre-flight festivities, the inaugural flight itself, the ground celebrations, and the special invite-only inaugural ceremony at the Shangri-La Hotel in Ulaanbaatar. United continues to fill the route map, and on this flight, they’ve done it again by adding one of their most Unique destinations yet!

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YOUTUBE: United Airlines: San Francisco to Taipei
YOUTUBE: EVA Airways: Taipei to Singapore
YOUTUBE: Malaysia Airlines: Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
YOUTUBE: Thai Airways: Singapore to Bangkok
YOUTUBE: Thai Airways: Bangkok to Tokyo Narita
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Tokyo Narita to Ulaanbaatar
YOUTUBE: MIAT Mongolian Airlines: Ulaanbaatar to Istanbul
YOUTUBE: Etihad Airways: Abu Dhabi to Singapore
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Hong Kong to Los Angeles

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Introduction

Welcome back to another United Airlines inaugural flight today from Tokyo Narita to Ulaanbaatar. United Airlines in October announced their latest new routes, and Ulaanbaatar was one of those new routes. This route is operated by one of United’s Guam-based Boeing 737-800s and even the crew for this flight was Guam based.

Now there is some fascinating logistics to talk about, and if these details don’t interest you, please skip over to the next section. Some of you might be wondering how United, an American carrier, is able to fly from Tokyo, a Japanese city, to Ulaanbaatar, a Mongolian city. The answer to that is 5th freedom traffic rights. The formal idea here is that an airline (United) from country A (USA), can operate a flight from country A (USA) to country B (Japan),  and then can pick up passengers in country B (Japan) and fly onwards to country C (Mongolia). It’s important to note that the flight has to be a continuation of a flight from country A. So United’s new flight from NRT to UBN is UA7. This is a continuation of United’s Houston to Tokyo Narita flight which is also UA7. Currently, United flies from 7 cities in the US to Tokyo Narita (LAX, SFO, EWR, IAH, DEN, GUM, SPN). So United can operate any additional flights from Tokyo Narita onwards, as long as it is a continuation of, and uses a flight number from one of the inbound US flights. If you want more details on this, feel free to check out my Inaugural flight video where I go into a little more visual detail on how this route works, and many other routes.

Pre-Flight Celebrations

Our journey begins in Tokyo, and at the check-in counter and lounge, there wasn’t too much activity going on or any indicator that there was an inaugural flight going on.

The gate, however, was an entirely different story. There was already a lot of media and presence at the gate itself.

There was even a tower of traditional Japanese Sake boxes and some bottles of green tea. The sake box was purely for display purposes here, however during boarding time everyone got a little goodie bag which contained a sake box.

There were also cupcakes available for everyone in the gate area to enjoy.

Eventually, all the speeches began with Patrick Quayle. He is United’s SVP of Global Route Network & Alliances and one of the great masterminds of United’s current robust global route network.

Eventually other people gave their welcome words as well including some of Narita’s Airport officials and other dignitaries.

After all the speeches were finished, the stage was being set up for a traditional Japanese Sake ceremony, known as Kagami Biraki. The idea here is that the lid of a sake barrel is broken open with a wooden mallet and the sake inside is shared to celebrate a special occasion. In this case, that special occasion would be the start of a new route.

After that it was picture time, and below is a few people from United, along with our Guam based flight deck team.

Our aircraft had arrived a short while back from Cebu, and was patiently waiting for us to get on board.

And, of course, I had to get a picture with Patrick Quayle himself.

As I said earlier, as we were boarding, we all got gift bags from United.

The contents of the gift bag were the following:

The Inflight Experience

Welcome aboard United’s first-ever flight to Mongolia AND… the first-ever flight by a US carrier to Mongolia.

Upon boarding, first class had a blanket, a menu with some welcome goodies, and the classic United stuffed bear.

These seats on United have been around for a while, and while the mainland 737s have begun retrofitting, I’m not sure where these Guam-based 737s sit in that queue.

Then there’s United’s Economy cabin which is in a very standard 3-3 configuration. The forward part of United’s economy cabin comprises of Economy plus, which is United’s extra legroom seats. They also have 2 powerports for every 3 seats in this section.

I was sitting in seat 11F which was a part of this economy plus section. Now United’s economy plus section is available for a charge, with the cost depending on each flight, however United Gold and above can select these seats for free at booking, with United Silver members joining that group at check in time. In my case, given my 1K status with United I was able to select this seat at booking time.

We just got a standard blanket for economy passengers at our seats.

Now unfortunately, my window was one of the dirtier windows I’ve had in a while, so while my pictures are coming out fine right now, you’ll notice how much that deteriorates as we fly into the night.

Eventually, we began our pushback. You just gotta love the Japanese tradition of waving goodbye to the plane.

Eventually we reached runway 16R and began our takeoff roll.

The crew did one round right after takeoff to check in on the passengers and have a few impromptu chats as well.

As I was mentioning earlier, this is a Guam-based 737. What does that mean? This aircraft does not have wifi. So plan accordingly if that’s something you were expecting as this flight is north of 5 hours. This flight also did not offer any of the bistro-on-board menu items that you’d expect on mainline United Airlines. But don’t worry, instead they provided a full lunch that we’ll see in a minute.

As we were flying through Japan, eventually the crew began their service.

For our meal we had 3 options for the main course: Braised Mongolian Beef, Gobi-style chicken, and Barley & vegetable stew.

I went for the Mongolian beef option.

What a colorful plate of food you have here.

The beef came with carrots, mushrooms, bean sprouts, onions, mashed potatoes, and a few other root vegetables. It was delicious!

The salad was also good. It was a mix of hand-cut noodles tossed with cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers.

The salad came with a yogurt garlic dressing that had sesame seeds and fresh dill.

Dessert was awesome too. It was a panna cotta and let me tell you why it was so great. It wasn’t too sweet, it was light and airy, and the Mongolian berries on top were the perfect tarty contrast to the sweetness of the panna cotta. It was so enjoyable.

And of course, there was the classic airplane bread roll that I didn’t even bother with.

For drinks I went with a glass of sparkling wine. These champagne bottles are the same ones United used to provide on their mainland flights, but those are now all canned wines. These proper bottles are still around on these Guam routes.

After dinner it was all views and chatting with the crew. My window was pretty dirty so I did the best I could with the views.

The crew was great to chat with, and they kept refilling my sparkling wine while at it too.

One of the passengers had also brought an inaugural cake for the crew.

Eventually we began our descent into Mongolia.

Our descent continued as we flew by the town of Nalaikh.

Our touchdown was a normal, uneventful landing, and we did a 180 on the runway itself to make our way to one of the taxiways.

There was a water cannon salute waiting for us.

The Post-Flight Experience

 

Once we arrived, there was a nice little setup for us outside the gate.

There were a few locals dressed in traditional clothing.

So naturally I had to get one for myself.

There were a few local media chains that conducted interviews of passengers getting off the flight.

The Invite-Only Afterparty

The video-digestible version of this can be found here.

The following evening, there was a special ceremony at the Shangri-La hotel in Ulaanbaatar to celebrate the launch of the new flight. In attendance were many people from United Airlines, local tourism agencies, airport officials, and even dignitaries such as the Mongolian Ambassador to the US. The US Ambassador to Mongolia would’ve been in attendance, however, he was flying the reverse inaugural from Ulaanbaatar to Tokyo that went out in the morning.

There was all the signage and Memorabilia that was probably used for the reverse inaugural. It would be funny if anyone took pictures with most of these signs given that the UBN-NRT reverse inaugural flew out this morning, so nobody at this event could’ve been on that flight.

Eventually, the event kicked off with a host introducing himself and the event with fun, flight-themed announcements.

Then there were performances from the locals. These performances were awesome, I highly encourage everyone to watch them (click here) if you are interested. The performance was beautiful as it combined traditional music with the different landscapes of the country and it was a complement.

After that we had a few speeches from some pertinent individuals.

His entire speech was in Mongolian so there was also a translator on the stage with him to intermittently translate parts to English.

The Mongolian Ambassador to the US was also on stage giving his speech.

And then of course, United’s very own Patrick Quayle, who is responsible for ideating United’s unique and comprehensive route network.

After that, there was a toast involving a few different VIPs as far as this route was concerned. The audience at their tables were invited to stand and join as well.

The speeches were mostly done at this point so it was now a Mongolian band playing some awesome music for us, and dinner was served at this point as well.

While they were setting up, first course was served and it was smoked salmon with a glass of white wine.

While we were eating, a local dancer came to the stage and was teaching us some Mongolian dance moves in between our meal courses.

And then eventually the band began their performance. If anyone knows the name of this band, please leave a comment, because I forgot their name even though it was mentioned.

The main course I had was the beef option.

Then there was dessert which was a brownie with a raspberry coulis of sorts.

I got to meet a few people too including this individual Davaasambuu Temuulen from Mongolia’s Tourism Department. He was awesome and super knowledgeable about Mongolia as a whole. The next time I come back to Mongolia, I’m definitely having him set up a special journey for me!

United’s Asia-Pacific sales team was also in attendance as performance of this route falls into their jurisdiction. Based out of Singapore, this awesome team of Marilyn, Sophia, and Eleanor was very hospitable and I can’t wait to see them in the near future!