Originally Posted by QRC3288

For the lounge, there is another thread. I believe it is confirmed BA.

For the "inagural" status, that will really be HKG-IAD, not the return. And even then they don't do much IIRC. The biggest recipients of the inagural festivities are the crew, generally on arrival at the port (IAD in this case). Depending on the airport authority, government involvement and whatnot, there are photo ops and gifts upon arrival for pilots and crew. Here considering the nighttime arrival, I'm doubtful of much. Morning Europe inagural arrivals are much better.

The return segment to HKG is unfortunately is not much. At best a table with some cheap food and photos during the boarding process. At worst, nada.

Bear in mind, contrary to totally inaccurate info posted on the blogs (Points Guy comes to mind), this will not be CX's inagural A350-1000 commercial flight. The plane type launches shortly for regional Asian ops and will be flying these commercial regional flights for a few months prior to the IAD launch. IAD is CXs A350-1000 first revenue longhaul mission, but IAD unfortunately won't mark the launch of the plane type itself for CX. The first routes instead will be MNL and TPE.