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Southwest Boeing 737 MAX 8 Inaugural with a “Spoiler Alert”
Southwest is the first US carrier operating the Boeing 737 MAX 8, and unlike Norwegian, Southwest is more conservative with its launch date. At the same time, Southwest chose to start using the 9 Boeing 737 MAX on the same day. The obvious inaugural flight was of course the flight with the prestigious flight number 1. As an attempt to honor its history, Southwest decides to use the new Boeing 737 MAX 8 on its original triangular flights: Dallas Love – Houston Hobby – San Antonio – Dallas Love, with the corresponding flight number of 1, 2 & 3. Honestly other than the “spoiler alert” on my flight, the other 8 Boeing 737 MAX 8 did very well. In terms of festivities, Southwest did a few nice things. While it was a hip party like Virgin America or a bigger production over in JetBlue, Southwest’s inaugural is also fun and I really appreciate how Southwest chooses to celebrate the inaugural with its employees. There are no fancy cakes or cocktail parties, but the atmosphere was excellent and the Southwest team was at least willing to talk to passengers. About the aircraft itself, the interior is nothing extraordinary, as the same cabin and galley are featured on some of the newly delivered Boeing 737-800s. The seats are comfortable with 32 inches of legroom, and compared to Boeing 737-700s, you can tell the slight difference. The only difference is the mood lighting, music playing during boarding, and the much quieter plane ride thanks to the new LEAP-1B engines. I will compare those two cabins on the next section. They are really identical. As the title suggests, things did not go smoothly but Southwest handles the situation pretty well.
Before sharing my story, I want to link to a more professionally done report.
There is also a link to my personal full album.
Professional link to Chris Sloan of Airways Magazine’s report:
https://airwaysmag.com/special-fligh...spoiler-alert/
I had the pleasure in briefly meeting Chris Sloan of Airways Magazine, as I was deplaning at Houston Hobby airport. I decided to provide a link to the article because it was a great report and provided a professional account of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 inaugural.
Album Link:
http://s1213.photobucket.com/user/Ca...37Max8FirstDay
Booking:
I wasn’t really sure whether to do this MAX 8 inaugural flights, but when I decided to do so, it was already late May. While I had no problems to book WN 2 and 3, WN 1 was fully booked to no surprise. On the day of inaugural, I heard from fellow passengers that they pretty much booked the moment it was put on sales. Many Southwest employees actually bought a revenue ticket on this special flight. I kept on checking periodically, and on the end of the July 4th weekend in the wee hours, one “anytime” seat suddenly showed up. Despite its $239 price tag, I immediately bought the ticket because it might be the only chance. My theory was that someone had to cancel and I just happened to be checking at the right time. Of course, after studying the schedule of the 9 737 MAX, I wanted to fly a second 737 MAX 8 flight, and it was sort of my back up. I noticed that there was a 2:55pm 7M8 flight from Dallas to Orlando, and with a 3 hours layover at Dallas Love Field, it sounded like a very pretty safe flight to book. Then I continued onto Fort Lauderdale, which was my final destination, on a regular 737-800 flight that connected easily to this flight. So, my final itinerary was all set – WN 1 2 3 4197 DAL-MCO 2180 MCO-FLL. I even splurged for business select for WN 3, so I could grab a cabin shot. Southwest has a great website and I purchased early bird check in for all flights, but of course due to the large load, my boarding number was towards the end of A group.
October 1, 2017
WN 1 DAL-HOU Lv0700 Arr0805 Boeing 737 MAX 8 N8707P
I arrived at Dallas Love at around 5:15am, and it was already a pretty busy place.
[On a side note, it was sad to see the nice Virgin America’s premium lounge disappeared.]
When I arrived at gate 16, where our flight would depart, there were already plenty of activities. You should see plenty of Southwest employees, including one wearing his cowboy hat, along with plenty of Boeing MAX t-shirts. There was even an enthusiast carrying a Southwest 737 model, in which Gary Kelly signed onboard later during the flight. Most passengers with a few exceptions were definitely here for the first flight.
Southwest set up a photo booth, which was a nice thing.
There was also a table featuring a few souvenir items that I have already seen on the Cincinnati inaugural flight.
While all the festivities were going on, N8707P was quietly sitting here with blue mood lighting turned on.
Announcement time:
Southwest is the first US carrier operating the Boeing 737 MAX 8, and unlike Norwegian, Southwest is more conservative with its launch date. At the same time, Southwest chose to start using the 9 Boeing 737 MAX on the same day. The obvious inaugural flight was of course the flight with the prestigious flight number 1. As an attempt to honor its history, Southwest decides to use the new Boeing 737 MAX 8 on its original triangular flights: Dallas Love – Houston Hobby – San Antonio – Dallas Love, with the corresponding flight number of 1, 2 & 3. Honestly other than the “spoiler alert” on my flight, the other 8 Boeing 737 MAX 8 did very well. In terms of festivities, Southwest did a few nice things. While it was a hip party like Virgin America or a bigger production over in JetBlue, Southwest’s inaugural is also fun and I really appreciate how Southwest chooses to celebrate the inaugural with its employees. There are no fancy cakes or cocktail parties, but the atmosphere was excellent and the Southwest team was at least willing to talk to passengers. About the aircraft itself, the interior is nothing extraordinary, as the same cabin and galley are featured on some of the newly delivered Boeing 737-800s. The seats are comfortable with 32 inches of legroom, and compared to Boeing 737-700s, you can tell the slight difference. The only difference is the mood lighting, music playing during boarding, and the much quieter plane ride thanks to the new LEAP-1B engines. I will compare those two cabins on the next section. They are really identical. As the title suggests, things did not go smoothly but Southwest handles the situation pretty well.
Before sharing my story, I want to link to a more professionally done report.
There is also a link to my personal full album.
Professional link to Chris Sloan of Airways Magazine’s report:
https://airwaysmag.com/special-fligh...spoiler-alert/
I had the pleasure in briefly meeting Chris Sloan of Airways Magazine, as I was deplaning at Houston Hobby airport. I decided to provide a link to the article because it was a great report and provided a professional account of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 inaugural.
Album Link:
http://s1213.photobucket.com/user/Ca...37Max8FirstDay
Booking:
I wasn’t really sure whether to do this MAX 8 inaugural flights, but when I decided to do so, it was already late May. While I had no problems to book WN 2 and 3, WN 1 was fully booked to no surprise. On the day of inaugural, I heard from fellow passengers that they pretty much booked the moment it was put on sales. Many Southwest employees actually bought a revenue ticket on this special flight. I kept on checking periodically, and on the end of the July 4th weekend in the wee hours, one “anytime” seat suddenly showed up. Despite its $239 price tag, I immediately bought the ticket because it might be the only chance. My theory was that someone had to cancel and I just happened to be checking at the right time. Of course, after studying the schedule of the 9 737 MAX, I wanted to fly a second 737 MAX 8 flight, and it was sort of my back up. I noticed that there was a 2:55pm 7M8 flight from Dallas to Orlando, and with a 3 hours layover at Dallas Love Field, it sounded like a very pretty safe flight to book. Then I continued onto Fort Lauderdale, which was my final destination, on a regular 737-800 flight that connected easily to this flight. So, my final itinerary was all set – WN 1 2 3 4197 DAL-MCO 2180 MCO-FLL. I even splurged for business select for WN 3, so I could grab a cabin shot. Southwest has a great website and I purchased early bird check in for all flights, but of course due to the large load, my boarding number was towards the end of A group.
October 1, 2017
WN 1 DAL-HOU Lv0700 Arr0805 Boeing 737 MAX 8 N8707P
I arrived at Dallas Love at around 5:15am, and it was already a pretty busy place.
[On a side note, it was sad to see the nice Virgin America’s premium lounge disappeared.]
When I arrived at gate 16, where our flight would depart, there were already plenty of activities. You should see plenty of Southwest employees, including one wearing his cowboy hat, along with plenty of Boeing MAX t-shirts. There was even an enthusiast carrying a Southwest 737 model, in which Gary Kelly signed onboard later during the flight. Most passengers with a few exceptions were definitely here for the first flight.
Southwest set up a photo booth, which was a nice thing.
There was also a table featuring a few souvenir items that I have already seen on the Cincinnati inaugural flight.
While all the festivities were going on, N8707P was quietly sitting here with blue mood lighting turned on.
Announcement time:
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