On Sunday I took the inaugural Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles, which was a pretty cool experience.
I was a bit surprised by the lack of festivities/buzz about the new route at Abu Dhabi Airport, though the opposite couldn’t have been more true at LAX.
Since this was the first time Etihad Airways flew to Los Angeles, quite a few people came out to see the plane land (after all, there’s not a much better airport for spotting than LAX, thanks to the In-N-Out located right under the approach path).
I love Etihad Airways’ livery. If a royal family had a private plane (okay, I guess that’s not really an “if”), I’d imagine it would be painted just like Etihad’s livery. So I imagine the plane even looks intriguing to people that have no clue what it is.
Anyway, a few of the spotters on the ground have shared some cool videos and pictures of the inaugural flight landing at LAX, which I figured I’d post. It’s cool to experience an inaugural flight from onboard a plane, but equally cool to see pictures and videos from the outside of a plane you were on.
Thanks to SpeedbirdHD for sending me a link to the video they took of the flight landing at LAX — it captures just how smooth the landing was (though it sure felt like we flared a long time):
If you look really closely you should be able to see me waving from the second set of windows on the left side of the plane. Okay, maybe not. 😉
Thanks also to Nerdbird SD for sending me the below pictures of the plane pulling into the gate. There wasn’t a water cannon salute due to the drought in California, though as we taxied into the gate the pilots held out US and UAE flags from the cockpit windows. Having been on the plane, that’s not something I could capture. 😉
Fun times, and I can’t wait for my next inaugural flight, which will be coming up soon!
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