Review of Delta Air Lines flight Atlanta → Des Moines in Economy

Information

This is the second in a four flight trip to Des Moines for my April break. We start the trip at gate A7 in Atlanta, where I left off on the last report.
BOS-ATL- http://flight-report.com/en/report/23292/Delta-Air-Lines-DL-800-Boston-BOS-Atlanta-ATL
ATL-DSM- Here-scheduled departure 3:10 Eastern (3:08 actual) scheduled arrival 4:30 Central (4:08 actual)
DSM-MSP-Coming Soon
MSP-BOS-Coming Soon

After transiting from concourse A to concourse B we walked the short distance to gate B28, our gate.



Our ride to Des Moines, an MD-88. Delta has implemented a new boarding process at ATL where passengers line up by zones. It did seem to speed up boarding-but it didn't seem to stop a line from creating in the jetway.



I reached row 27, close to the back of the plane.



The width of 17.2 inches was good, but didn't leave much wiggle room. The pitch of 32 inches was plenty though. We taxied to the runway, and with no wait, we were off on our 2 hr flight to Des Moines



Takeoff was brisk and we soon reached our cruising altitude of 34,000 feet.



The crew was ok, but a little worse than DL's average. When I asked for both cookies and biscoffs, only biscoffs were given, along with cranberry juice.



While no built in ife was available, free streaming was, and around 40 movies and many more tv shows and songs, were available on Delta Studio.



I visited an aft lav, and it was fairly clean, as well as being much bigger than the current generation of aircraft lavs.



Gear down as we cruise into Des Moines.



A smooth landing ended a below average, but still fine, trip on Delta. On the way out, I stopped by the cockpit to thank the pilots for a safe trip, and was rewarded by receiving a card for the MD 88/90 aircraft. This definitely bumped up my ratings of the crew for this sector.



Des Moines airport isn't very nice, but a new terminal is in the works.