Review of Delta Air Lines flight Minneapolis → Chicago in Economy

Continuing where I left off from my previous part…
Here are the flight details first:
Delta Connection flight DL4695 Fargo to Minneapolis/St. Paul (1319 hours to 1427 hours), CRJ200 (N426SW)
Delta Air Lines flight DL1717 Minneapolis/St. Paul to Chicago O'Hare (1510 hours to 1637 hours), MD90 (this report!)

December 20th 2015
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight KL612 Chicago O'Hare to Amsterdam-Schiphol (1625 hours to 0710 hours +1), B74M

December 21st 2015
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight KL871 Amsterdam-Schiphol to New Delhi IGI (1245 hours to 0100 hours +1), B744

December 22nd 2015
Air India flight AI401 New Delhi IGI to Kolkata NSCBI (0700 hours to 0900 hours), B788

December 25th 2015
Mihin Lanka flight MJ332 Kolkata NSCBI to Colombo Bandaranaike (1040 hours to 1340 hours), A321

December 28th 2015
Mihin Lanka flight MJ331 Colombo Bandaranaike to Kolkata NSCBI (0635 hours to 0935 hours), A320

January 6th, 2016
Air India flight AI676 Kolkata NSCBI to Mumbai T2 (0945 hours to 1245 hours), A319

January 7th, 2016
Jet Airways flight 9W495 Mumbai T1B to Bengaluru Kempegowda (2140 hours to 2135 hours), B738

January 8th, 2016
Air France flight AF191 Bengaluru Kempegowda to Paris Charles De'Gaulle (0245 hours to 0845 hours), B77E
Delta Air Lines flight DL123 Paris Charles De'Gaulle to Chicago O'Hare (1230 hours to 1518 hours), B76W

January 9th, 2016
Delta Air Lines DL1717 Chicago O'Hare to Minneapolis/St. Paul (1715 hours to 1854 hours), B712
Delta Air Lines DL1956 Minneapolis/St. Paul to Fargo Hector International (2028 hours to 2135 hours), A320

As always, the link to the video flight report:




There it was, another t-tail bird for the day. The MD90. My first flight on this bird was a memorable one back in 2014, with EVA Air from Hong Kong to Taipei. Back then, there were three operators: EVA Air, their subsidiary UNI Air, and of course Delta Air Lines. Today, there's only Delta. There’s only 65 of them (lesser than the MD80 series).The MD90 is endemic to its home, the USA.

N912DN, a 19.7 years old veteran


I once again got very close to the long flying pencil, the Boeing 757. But to no avail. I fear the closest I'll ever get to a 757 is at the aerobridges. Ugh. :(


Boarding was called pretty soon. It looked like a fairly full flight to Chicago O'Hare. Due to Delta's pretty strange boarding process, and being sat in seat 36A (towards the very back of the aircraft, that is), I still had some time to go before boarding.


I did have 3 bags (camera, bag pack, and a small duffel bag) which got me a bit worried. I got away with it in Fargo, and the same was the case in Minneapolis. The nice agent at the gate wished me a nice fight as I boarded the MD90. N912DN was a 19.7 years old bird on the day of flying.

She was maintained in a crisp condition. Nice interiors, a very fresh look on the seats. The New York based crew gave everyone a warm welcome onboard, which is always nice! Being a mainline Delta flight, advertisements were played on the PA system, while I saw the First Class seats. Paper cups for drinks in for the first class folk. In India, there is a raging debate about service beverages in paper cups, which is looked down up as compared to the plastic cups, which (I think) are reusable….

I walked all the way back to my seat, which was behind the emergency exit door (there is only one, port side). I had a decent view of the IAE V2500 engine. Yep, the same as on the Airbus narrow bodies.


The captain also welcomed us onboard the plane ‘dubbed as the Mad Dog’. That was so pleasing to hear :P Seated on 36B was a member of the USA military. Off duty, of course. He was flying from Detroit, MI to Chicago. He wanted to know a lot about India…some of the basic questions such as population and food, to some unorthodox ones such as the ability to eat elephant meat…..yeah. This was a theme for the rest of the flight, right up until docking at the gate in Chicago.

The crew welcomed us passengers onboard. Flying time would be a short 55 minutes at an altitude of 31000 feet. It was getting close to departure time. Was a lot of fun seeing a couple of planes land and take off…this included a Delta A330 that taxied in after landing and just waited on the tarmac for a long long time….waiting for another A330 to leave the gate.


1508 hours. Two minutes before departure time. Pushback! The IAE V2500 engines were brought into life… And oh boy oh boy did it sound very retro!


A long taxi followed. However, there was no doubt that the pilots were in a hurry as the taxi was quite quick! We were number 2 for take off.

1520 hours, we taxied on to the runway which was followed by very nice and noisy take off roll - the IAEV2500 engines made some fantastic sounds as we blasted down the runway, followed by a sharp bank over the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I was just so happy to hear some proper loud engines after a long long time!



We leveled off at 31000 feet. The snack service began. The flight attendant my part of the plane got…wasn’t exactly very friendly. The person next to me said to get the entire can of the drink, as opposed to what Delta offer (which is only a fraction of the content in the can). The flight attendant made a face. He basically slammed the pretzels on to our tray tables. When I asked him about cookies and peanuts, he seemed quite annoyed by my question. Oh okay then. Anyway, strange that I didn’t get any of the latter two. The person beside me and I spoke a lot, and before we knew it, it was time to land in Chicago!


Descent began as the sun started to set. We flew over Lake Michigan, banking a couple of times before setting a final approach course into one of Chicago’s many runways. It was a beautiful orange scene outside as the MD90 slowly glided into Chicago O’Hare.


Chicago being an absolute no-bullsh*t airport in terms of traffic, we glided down with another plane landing on to parallel runway. An American Airlines B737, it looked like.


1610 hours, we made a smooth touchdown.


A long long long taxi followed to Terminal 2. Honestly, I think we taxied on the ground for longer than the actual flying time itself :P This was quite clearly the land of United Airlines. As a friend put it - United is the LORD of ORD!


Ahh, the Boeing 747-8 looks like a great plane! I wonder if I'll ever be on one….but KLM B747-400s….first things first!


There were barely any Delta Air Lines planes, except for my MD90, and of course, another CRJ I guess.


I waited for all passengers to get off before I made my way out. I had all the time to kill!


I saw the cockpit door open, and voila! The nice flight attendant allowed me to have a quick peek of the cockpit. A classy one, that too.


Bags had come out fairly soon, I got my suitcase and made my way to the Blue Line CTA train, the metro that would take me to Jackson, where my Hostel was located. It was a nice long 45 minute journey. At the hostel, I checked in and met a wonderful friend there, who was doing a cross-country trip. And here I was, just waiting for a trip half way across the world! A big blue Boeing 747 awaited me…..