Review of Delta Connection flight Ithaca Detroit in Economy

Airline Delta Connection
Flight DAL7411
Class Economy
Seat 4A
Flight time 01:00
Take-off 09 Jun 16, 06:20
Arrival at 09 Jun 16, 07:20
DL   #70 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 137 reviews
Menzenski
By 700
Published on 13th July 2016
Hi everyone!

For my first report on this site, I'll cover a recent trip out to the Bay Area of California.

You can find the second flight of this trip here.

I found a great deal for an award ticket (miles + cash) out of Ithaca and booked the ticket about 10 days out. I got dropped off at the airport at about 5:00 for our 6:15 departure, which ended up being more than enough time, as anyone who has flown out of a smaller airport will probably know.

I grabbed my boarding passes for the day from a kiosk, then proceeded to join three other people in the line for security, getting through in less than five minutes. There were actually quite a few people in the gate area, as there are three flights in the early morning at Ithaca: United Dash-8 to EWR, American Dash-8 to PHL, and the Delta CRJ to DTW.

After the 5:45 American flight had departed, it was time for the Delta flight to board. This was an interesting experience. The boarding process goes something like this: people needing extra time, then active-duty military and Delta status holders, then zone 1, then zone 2. However this morning, there wasn't a single passenger who boarded before zone 2 was called, so I ended up being one of the first to board the plane.

After getting my boarding pass scanned, I walked up the ramp into the single jet bridge in Ithaca, storing my larger carry on bag on the baggage elevator to the right of the bridge. After squeezing myself into seat 4A, my seatmate appeared and sat down in 4B. Luckily for me, the flight was only half full this morning, and my seatmate ended up moving into an empty row. Excellent. Unfortunately for my 6'4" self (193 cm), being based in Central New York means lots of CRJ flying. This was one of the lucky times where I can actually breathe a bit.

Experience has taught me that on morning flights out of Ithaca, you need to get a window seat on the left of the cabin. With calm winds being the norm in the early mornings, takeoffs are generally on runway 32 offering a fantastic view of Cayuga lake and downtown Ithaca. This was the case on this morning as well:



Another bonus of having a left-side window seat is that you get a great view of the rest of the Finger Lakes. Keuka lake:

image

The friendly flight attendant came through with the drink cart and I got a coffee. This cup in particular was far and away the best coffee I've had on a plane. I was pleasantly surprised, especially considering this was on a 15 year old CRJ.

Clouds over western New York near Lake Erie:

image

Approaching DTW over downtown Detroit:

image

We landed on runway 21L and taxied to gate A53. This was the first time I've seen a flight from Ithaca park at an A concourse gate at DTW, which was nice as I only had about 45 minutes to get to my SFO flight down the concourse. After deplaning, I stopped right outside the aircraft to wait for my pink-tagged bag, assuming that since this was an A gate it didn't have an elevator for the larger carry on bags. I was the first one there, and everyone else lined up behind me. However, after waiting for several minutes, one of the pilots noticed us all gathered there and came out to check. Apparently since the last time I have used A53, an elevator was added around the corner in the jetway. Oops, sorry everyone. We all made it to the elevator just as an agent was opening the door, so no time lost.
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Verdict

Delta Connection

7.8/10
Cabin8.0
Cabin crew9.0
Entertainment/wifi7.0
Meal/catering7.0

Ithaca - ITH

9.5/10
Efficiency10.0
Access9.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness10.0

Detroit - DTW

9.0/10
Efficiency8.5
Access8.5
Services9.0
Cleanliness10.0

Conclusion

Overall, this has to be up there with my favorite CRJ flights ever. The light load made it much more comfortable for me, the flight attendant was great, and the coffee was especially great.

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8 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 357443 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6658 Comments
    Hi There. Thanks for posting your first report here. The pictures aren't showing up. It looks like your links between the [img] tags aren't working. You may want to go ahead and upload the pics directly into the photo gallery on here. Just make sure they are less than 2MB (resize them if they are larger). Thanks!
    • Comment 357470 by
      Menzenski AUTHOR 28 Comments
      Thanks for the message. That is interesting, as the preview was fine. I was trying to just use links to Google Photos because I had problems with orientation uploading to this site. I will work on it and update.
      • Comment 357473 by
        KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6658 Comments
        Interesting. They weren't showing up for me in the preview mode. Those Google links look really long--maybe there is another shorter link provided that will work? Back before we had the ability to upload pics directly to the site, I used imageshack, and I remember that there were 2 or 3 types of links that you could use, so maybe Google pics is the same, but I'm not familiar with it.
  • Comment 357605 by
    indianocean SILVER 7572 Comments
    Too bad you didn't take any pix at the airport. I've studied summer sessions two years in a row at Cornell and I wanted to know if the airport was still the same.
    IIRC, only two airlines from ITH: US Airways to LGA and PHL and DL to DTW
    Thank you for sharing
    • Comment 357608 by
      Menzenski AUTHOR 28 Comments
      Thanks for the comment. For some reason, I never think to take photos inside terminals, maybe that will change now that I'm posting here!

      The terminal is pretty much the same. The only differences I can think of are a luggage-screening machine in the middle of the check-in area, and a proper door for people leaving the secure area, which are pretty minor changes.

      The LGA flight was cancelled back when Delta and US Airways did their slot-swap between LGA and DCA in 2012 or so. There was talk of gaining a DCA flight on US Airways, but nothing ever came about. Continental began service to EWR in the fall of 2008, which has been continued since then with United.

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