Review: Review: United’s First Flight to Santiago De Compostela in Premium Plus
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YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Newark to Santiago de Compostela
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Table of Contents
Introduction
It’s been a busy summer for United as they launched new flights to 4 different destinations from Newark. The last one of the season was Santiago de Compostela, and that’s where we are heading today.
Pre Flight Festivities
Our gate today was gate C105. This is normally the gate for inaugural flights here at EWR involving 737 because the area right across the road is a vacant place and floor, which has space for hosting pre-flight festivals.
After that was a vice consulate from the Spanish Consulate in New Jersey.
The captain of this aircraft was also no ordinary captain. This is Miles Morgan, who is United’s Managing Director of Inflight Training for every United Pilot, and he usually flies these 737 inaugurals from the US.
The speeches concluded with the usual ribbon cutting ceremony to kick off the new route formally.
There were also some local snacks dedicated to the region we were flying to.
Our aircraft patiently waited for us at gate C105.
Boarding eventually began at which point I boarded with the global services people.
In-Flight
EWR-SCQ
Boeing 737 MAX 8
United’s 737 MAX 8 is split up across 2 cabins. A forward business class cabin that has 4 rows and an economy class cabin.
Now on domestic flights, this forward cabin is sold as “United First”, on shorter international flights this cabin is sold as “United Business”. So what would you sell this as on a flight to Europe? You can’t call it Polaris Business because that would degrade the polaris branding that comes with flatbed seats and other true business class amenities. So this is called United Premium Plus which is the same branding that United’s Premium economy product has on widebody aircraft.
Given that this was an inaugural flight, ever seat had inaugural goodies set up for us.
The seats are standard recliner seats in a 2-2 configuration.
The main thing to know was that the power ports and headphone jack were between the seats alongside a storage space for bottles, and the headphones were to your side in a separate storage space, next to your thigh muscle.
Meanwhile United Economy is in your standard 3-3 layout. They had pillows waiting for them, and envelopes which pretty much had the same inaugural goodies we had except economy class doesn’t get the polar bear.
Inaugural flights like these also come with specially themes pajamas.
They are usually designed in inspiration from the destination we are flying to. But don’t be enamored, this is again a pure inaugural flight and United doesn’t normally give these on even short polairs flights.
Our purser was Galician which was super cool given that we were flying to Galicia. He came around with pre departure beverages which consisted of glasses of water or sparkling wine and I went with the latter. But this sparkling wine tasted better, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but more on that later.
Eventually, we began our taxi out to runway 22R for a long takeoff roll, given we were maxed out on the fuel.
One of the service managers from EWR was on this flight and came to me and offered me a little thank you bag with a note, a pin, her business card, and some mints and she thanked me for my 1K status with United, which I thought was a nice gesture.
The menu was as follows:
As you can see, this flight had 2 full meals if you were a premium plus passenger.
To start we were given hot towels that had a nice light scent.
Service began with warm nuts and glasses.
This is where the surprise came in. United had actual champagne on this flight, and that too a decent champagne they usually only have in Polaris.
I was surprised to see this wine up here in premium plus, but I wasn’t sure if it was only there for the inaugural flight.
Eventually dinner was served and I went for the Ajada a la Gallega which was the beef option.
My neighbor who is Eric Rubens, a well known photographer, went for the halibut option.
Let me just say this. When you are flying United, you can call this whatever you want and cover it with whatever you want, but if your flight does not have short rib, it’s not a United flight.
The shrimp and potatoes were quite nice.
Dessert was a special tarta de Santiago which was dense, airy, and tasty. I had a bite of it just to try it, enjoyed it, and left the rest be.
At this point meals were cleared but we really only had 3 hours left in the flight. If you wanted breakfast, you’d be woken up in 1 hour 45 min roughly.
Our amenity kit for the flight was honestly pretty well stocked for a premium economy amenity kit. You have socks, an eyemask, a dental kit, tissues, earplugs, and hydrating creams. The dental kit is really the only thing I care for because for every dental kit I can take, that’s one additional use that I can preserve my own toothbrush and toothpaste. It sounds cheap, but it adds up. Overall though, I think this is a solid premium amenity kit.
I can also say that this wasn’t just an inaugural flight amenity kit because I’ve seen this same quality of amenity kit on other normal long haul premium economy flights.
People were doing all kinds of things. Some were clearly trying to sleep, others were just pushing themsleves to stay awake.
As iF I needed more food, the crew came around with snack options in-flight. They handed me an Apertif box without asking, which had cheese and crackers.
A short while later, breakfast was served. I went for the chorizo omelet which was delicious.
There were mushrooms, asparagus, anf the omelete itself in a tangy red sauce.
The fruits were chilled, moist, and refreshing.
The croissant was properly heated and it was warm and soft but I only had a bite of this one.
The new day was starting to become propertly visible at this point.
Our dinner had come with chocolates which I wasn’t quite feeling at that time, but hey, chocolates at 630 AM? Why not?
Eventually, our descent began over the clouds, which broke to a beautiful view of the Galician countryside.
From there we began our final approach onto runway 17.
Ground staff were awaiting us at the gate for our arrival.
Overall, this was a fun flight, a cool route that United has added to their network. However, it definitely was a brutal flight, being in a narrowbody aircraft for a very short overnight flight. I think if I were visiting Spain in the future, I would rather fly into one of the bigger cities like Barcelona and Madrid, and then finish my trip in Galicia and fly on this aircraft out. Make no mistake; This route is super awesome and the next time I return to Galicia I’ll happily fly this aircraft out as it’s during the daytime however, I’d probably elect to fly into another city first and you have so many opportunities to do because United’s Spain network is massive with them flying to Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Palma De Mallorca, Bilbao, and now Santiago de Compostela. Props to United for being different from the rest and allowing customers to more easily accessn unique destinations around the world.