This is a trip of a lifetime trip report as I was one of 12 winning bidders in a charity action for Unicef where winning bids received one economy class row of seats on the Norwegian Airlines 737 Max delivery flight from Boeing Field (BFI) to Oslo Norway (OSL), with a return journey in premium economy to any USA destination served by Norwegian.
Boarding the 737 Max
Other than flying my own airplane this had to be the least stressful boarding of a commercial airliner I've ever had. In fact there was no boarding announcement a.k.a cattle call it was at your leisure, and leisurely it was. There were no gate lice everyone was talking amongst themselves and those doing the screening were pretty docile and jovial. The guy in front of me wanted to bring what was left over drinks from our lunch and they said, "no problem"! It was like TSA PRE where we loaded our bags onto the conveyor belt and picked them up after the x-ray examination, and then it was walking down the jet bridge to board. Ahhh yes that new airplane smell. I was greeted by Anna one of four flight attendants for this trip. I later learned each were hand picked by Norwegian for this as well, quite an honor as I understood. Its a 737 so here are my observations that may be different that any other 737.
The Sky interior ran the length of the 737 with a noticeable coved ceiling. At the entry way there were two smaller ones as well.
This was an all economy plane and I immediately noted these are definitely the slimline seats. Now while Im grateful for the means to have been a high bidder on this trip getting one whole row of 3 seats to myself, I don't think my butt would survive well seated in a full plane for a 9+ hour flight. Ever glad I brought my own seat cushion as well.
Luggage bins to me looked standard but I'm not certain they are like the bins where your luggage goes on its side to fit more.
There are no windows or offset windows between rows 11-13 on this bird, so if your a window person those are the rows to avoid.
The DEF bulkhead row of seats has the best legroom other than the exit rows.
There is one lavatory in the front and two in the back. I thought the rear lavs layout made things rather easy and they felt slightly wider than most.
An all glass cockpit but more on that later.
CON: my con of this plane and really ANY new Boeing plane is I do NOT like the new style air vents. I find then hard to use and useless compared to the older kind. I like a steady stream of air when I fly and on a new plane like this, it was barely dripping. Again thankful I could have the whole row and open them all up just for me. And there is NO POWER at the WIFI is being outfitted in Oslo.
All the arm rests went up which made for more space - A+ ��
Seat storage was minimal however the netted area of the seat back did fit my bottle of water I was given on the flight and each seat had no intrusions for your bags or feet. Ready for takeoff!
