My first time flying Delta Airlines and I am doing it on a trans-continental route.
So I had 4 flights booked on this trip with Delta. 2x Boeing 757, a McDonnell-Douglas MD-88 and Boeing 767-300. A good mix of classic DL Metal that won't be around much longer.
So my flight would turn out to be on N704X, an ex-TWA machine that DL bought off AA in 2005 to allow them to fly trans-continental and "skinny" European routes from the East Coast.
So the flight was almost full and given that DL offers 2 bags (one carry on, one personal) they decided push was to come to shove & ask for volunteers.
I had a big ruck-sack (which just comes under the personal bag dimensions) so I took the opportunity to put my small red suitcase on as a carry on as this was my only direct flight today.
Big surprise (they never mentioned this) was to find that as I volunteered my bag, I got my boarding class bumped to Group 1 from Group 5. Bonus!
So I get on and say Hi to all the cabin crew, I find my seat 40F in the Mood-Lit cabin. Sitting down I was surprised at the legroom on the plane. It seemed more generous than the KLM 747 and more generous to the Icelandair 757 I flew only 11 month before hand!
Most US Airlines offer free soft/hot drinks and have you pay for meals, snack boxes & food, however I found that DL had brought in proper free meals (breakfast in this case) for the trans-connie!
I spent the rest of the parked up time scanning through the DL in flight entertainment system wandering what shows, films & music were on the playlist as I had time. Not worth photographing much as it was still pre-dawn. Some notable finds included: Man V Food (2017 Series), Simpsons, Law & Order SVU, Dateline (Crime Doc) and the recent 2017 films Dunkirk and American Made.
With the nearly full flight boarded, we pushed back and departed 10 minutes behind the scheduled departure time, which is quite sharp for LAX! As we took off the sun began to break on the horizon.
With daylight now in full swing and after watching a few in-flight tv shows in between the in flight map, the Breakfast cart came. Three options were offered and I took a gamble on the Bagel.
I found the breakfast really nice and a good addition to my flight. Only thing was the Lettuce & "Granny Smith" Apple slices which I took off- I didn't think it would have gone well with Cheese, ham and mustard in a Cinnamon Bagel. But that's just me.
The rest of the flight went smooth & uneventful, the cabin crew did a final snack & beverage service about 2 hours from arrival to JFK.
I took this as a good time to explore the galley on the 757!
We did finally land in New York JFK a good 20 minutes ahead of schedule with no time to hold whatsoever, clean arrival straight in!
After we landed at JFK and turning off the runway a Xamian Boeing 787-9 departed as we backed up down the taxi-way. Had seen it awaiting as we passed on finals.
We parked at Terminal 4 at JFK (the Delta Terminal building) and with that I left the plane via a quick visit to the Flight Deck.
Video of DL763 Flight Report:
Thanks for this FR.
Though the breakfast served is pretty normal for a 5h flight, on a US airline in economy it's a real treat.
I had the same cabin on a flight from CDG to EWR and it was indeed confortable.
Found the legroom surprisingly good. DL deffo gets my vouch if I was asked to recommend for a trans-con flight.
Thanks for sharing. Was the bagel breakfast free? Or was that from the BOB menu? I heard recently Delta doesn't charge any longer for cross-country flights and so wasn't sure.
It was complimentary. I think they offer alcoholic beverages and some snack boxes at a price. But I didn't need to ask :)
Hi Jett, thanks for sharing this new report. This is yet another data point that shows Delta is leading the US Legacy carriers when it comes to the passenger experience, in Y anyway. This old bird looks fresh and new--long live the 757! Also, it's encouraging to see free meal service coming back to domestic flying, even if it's just on transcons. I think we're seeing one of the benefits of so much consolidation in the US airline industry: with so few full service carriers left (if you can even call them that), and prices generally the same between the US3 on any given route on which they compete, they are now having to distinguish themselves on service and experience, which had been going down the toilet since 2001. It's nice to see evidence of service improvements!
Had a great time flying DL. Did 4 flights and enjoyed all of them.
Did this flight twice and got the Skyteam 757 on my second journey.
American wasn't too bad- that report will drop in a month or so...
I'm impressed by the catering offered in economy, big change from my last transcon three years ago, where I was only offered a pretzel bag.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, this flight was done (and reported) almost 3 years ago, back in January 2018.
First time on Delta too!