Scenes from the American Airlines 777-300ER Inaugural Flight Party
American threw a party at Gate D- 23 last night to celebrate the maiden passenger flight of their new Boeing 777-300ER. Customers traveling on AA 963 from DFW to Sao Paulo, Brazil were served refreshments and given gift bags to commemorate the special flight.
American’s CEO, Tom Horton, and Chief Commercial Officer, Virasb Vahidi were also traveling on the flight, and before boarding began they offered a few words to mark the occasion. Afterwards, they visited with passengers and employees, and posed for photos.
It was a really festive atmosphere. When boarding began the whole crowd started clapping and cheering when a husband and wife couple became the new airplane’s first official passengers by boarding the plane.
Virasb Vahidi and Tom Horton visiting with American Airlines passengers
Chris Sloan, producer of the Travel Channel’s Airport 24/7 Miami and the man behind The Airchive, has some excellent photos from the flight, including some of Tom Horton serving champagne to passengers.
Edit: Thanks to Eloy for sending this photo of the gift basket items!
Awesome stuff! thanks for the inside pics.
What was inside the gift bags?
@ Zach – 5.000 AAdvantage miles certificate, a sweatshirt, 2 bags and a travel wallet with the new American Airlines logo. I’ve updated the post with a photo! Thanks for asking!
Where/when can I view the business class photos. We are
flying on the 77W in business class.
Was just at the D AC and had a great view of the new livery 77W parked at gate 25.
what size was the sweatshirts? i like get one for my sweet sister. her is a small. thank you Sir
@ Chris Glaspell – Thanks for asking, I’ll post them on Monday.
@ Doug – So what did you think now that you’ve had a chance to see the plane and not just a photo?
@ mike bay – I’m sure one of the sweatshirts (and probably a complete giftbag) will turn up on eBay – everything eventually does! 😉
I liked the livery much better in person! I snapped some of my own pics from the AC (I seemed to be the only one doing so- got some strange looks actually) and from the gate. I wasn’t on this flight- I was flying out of C- just came to D for some Cousin’s BBQ and to see the 777.