It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that Boeing 777s have been flying for more than 17 years. It still seems like a brand new airplane to me. And since I’m in an inaugural mood this week from my 787 ride, here’s United’s initial layout of their 777-200s for this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps.

United was the launch customer of the 777 with the inaugural flight occurring on June 5, 1995. First Class seated 12 passengers in a 2-2-2 configuration with 64 inches of pitch between rows. Connoisseur Class offered 49 seats in the 2-3-2 layout with 49 inches of pitch. (As a point of reference, United’s non-flat bed 777s currently flying have 55 inches of pitch in Business Class.) And economy class seated 231 passengers in the 2-5-2 configuration with 31-33 inches of pitch (this was pre-Economy Plus).

I loved row two in First, row nine in Connoisseur and the first several rows of coach.

Where would you sit?

Related posts:

United Airlines 767-300 Seat Map (1998)

United Airlines L-1011-500 Seat Map

United Airlines 747-SP Seat Map

Here’s a pretty incredible video produced by JustPlanes featuring a behind-the-scenes look at Air Canada’s flight from Toronto to Hong Kong, AC015. It begins in dispatch and ends with a fantastic short-final video touching down in Hong Kong, also including incredible scenery from the polar route it flies in between.

One of the pilots does a walkaround, there’s a little cabin action (though on the HKG-YYZ leg), and it’s just a great video for any aviation or airline geek. Enjoy!

I was going through my photos yesterday and came across the batch of pictures I took when I flew on the inaugural United Airlines Boeing 777 flight from Denver to Chicago on June 7, 1995. Knowing there are a ton of aviation geeks out there like me, I figured it would be worth it to post a vintage trip report of my experience and share the pictures below.

I was employed by United at the time, took a vacation day that Wednesday and purchased a revenue ticket to ensure I’d have a seat on the historic flight. As I recall, the ticket was about $240 for the same day ORD-DEN-ORD trip and luckily I still had elite status with United so was able to upgrade into Connoisseur Class on the all-important 777 segment. I was a ‘Premier Emeritus’, the “soft landing” United used to bestow on elites in the year following not having requalified for any status. This was in the day of paper 500-milers and I do remember I had only two left so my flight to Denver that morning on a 757 was in economy. I broke the rules and booked my own reservation (a no-no for employees to book their own revenue tickets at that time) and also self-upgraded the DEN-ORD segment, but did that within my 24-hour window per the rules. Sorry United!

It was a beautiful day to fly and I arrived in Denver early leaving about an hour and a half to savor the departure gate festivities at B36 for United flight 910.

The gate area was decked out with balloons, beverages, food & cake and several members of the media were present along with United executives.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony it was time for boarding and my heart was racing in excited anticipation of the historic flight. The business class cabin on the initial configuration seated 49 passengers and was divided into a three row cabin forward of door two and a four row cabin aft.

Onboard, champagne was served to the Connoisseur Class cabin along with commemorative baseball caps and inaugural flight certificates.

I had hair (and acne)!

Although I was disappointed in not having scored a window seat, I was still able to witness many of United’s employees and airport workers watching us taxi out to the runway. The flight was fantastic and I noticed Lester Holt, a CBS news anchor in Chicago at that time (now on NBC’s Today Show), was seated in the rear Connoisseur cabin. The flight flew by and we were far too quickly arriving at our gate in Chicago.

It remains to this day one of my all time favorite experiences flying United and I hope you enjoyed the flash back photo tour.