PsiFighter37

Took my first flights since mid-February to visit elderly relatives in California, so I did a simple EWR-LAX TCON flight. My observations:

-airports are dead, dead, DEAD. My departure flight out of EWR was on a Thursday morning...Terminal C was probably at 10% of usual traffic. LAX Terminal 7 was even less occupied; when I deplaned Thursday midday, there were maybe a couple dozen other people airside outside of folks getting off of our flight. Saturday morning was marginally busier. The United Club in LAX is huge, but I did not count more than a dozen people in the entire club when I visited. There are a handful of restaurants/concession spots open in both airports, but it is heavily scaled back. I was the only person using CLEAR at either EWR or LAX, and there was nobody else at all in the LAX TSA PreCheck line.
-boarding procedures are not entirely clear. In EWR, they preboarded business class; in LAX, they forgot to announce 1Ks to preboard (and also got the order of preboarding completely wrong). I was also very surprised by the number of premier members on each flight - there were no GS and only 2 1Ks (including myself) on EWR-LAX, if observing preboarding numbers was accurate. I may have been the only 1K on my flight back.
-Both flights weren't empty, but my EWR-LAX flight (on a 78J) was probably at 40-50% capacity. LAX-EWR, on a 752, was termed 'fairly full', which I would anticipate means that it crossed the 70% (I think) threshold that allows people to rebook to a later flight if they feel uncomfortable.
-If you are a premier member, you can likely clear on an upgrade instead of paying, especially if you are on a bigger plane. EWR-LAX was 22/44 booked; more than a dozen people were upgraded. LAX-EWR had some more variability in people booked, but it ended up going out 14/16.
-Soft product...I felt service was better than on my 'average' United flight, but the food offerings are slim pickings. 2 meal choices, with everything pre-wrapped. French toast on the way out was a sorry excuse of a meal - 4 tiny triangles of toast, with 1 tiny sausage link. I passed on the prepackaged fruit and yogurt. Lunch on the return was spicy chicken with rice and green beans - better but still not great. I passed on prepackaged salad, as well as the white chocolate cranberry cookie. There is a snack basket that is passed around; on the return flight, the FAs were very generous in making multiple passes.
-Other observations: LAX traffic, which would ordinarily be terrible at the times I was there (around noon) was nonexistent. I was the only person on the Hertz rental car bus when I arrived. At EWR, I had to wait more than half an hour to catch a Lyft back to NYC - incomprehensible to think of in normal times, when there would be plenty of cars nearby that would love to end up in NYC on a Saturday night. On arrival at EWR, you are warned that you will have to quarantine for 14 days if you are coming from California, but there is no paperwork to be filled out (unlike at NY-domiciled airports, where I believe you are given something to fill out). I do fully plan on staying inside for 14 days; good thing the weather appears to be miserable for some time, so I won't be missing much...

Next flight will be EWR-PWM in late August...will be interesting to see if things have picked up at all by then.