Review of Delta Air Lines flight Atlanta → Madrid in Economy

05/22/18
DL 1912 HOU-ATL HERE
DL 0108 ATL-MAD This Report


Hello Again,


Picking up from where I left off earlier, I've landed in Atlanta on time and since I had some time to kill at the airport (more on that in a little bit, I've decided to take a nice walk from one end of the airport to the other via underground walkways and people mover spotting some planes on the way.

At Atlanta

Lufthansa A340-300 D-AIFF "Delmenhorst" to Frankfurt, Germany


Virgin Atlantic (Registration Unknown) to Manchester, UK


Qatar Airways A350-900 (A7-ALF) arrived from Doha Hamad Intl Airport


Haven't seen one of those in a while and it's been almost 10 years since I got on one of this at Baltimore.


Atlanta International Terminal, upstairs contained a food court and Delta Sky Club.

Boarding

About 30 minutes before our scheduled boarding, I made my way to my gate F12. As I sat down and texted my friends for a bit, an announcement came on about our flight uh oh….
Turns out, they found some mechanical error on our aircraft so they told us it would be an 30 minute delay, OK no big deal. But in the end we didn't start the boarding process until 6:35 PM, an hour and 34 minutes behind scheduled boarding. What kind of irritated me was lack of information from the time they announced the delay until they started to board the aircraft, I think it caught some people who went to grab dinner off guard. But at least the boarding process was relatively orderly but I was on board my seat 27A in due time.

New departure time:

On Board

Our aircraft for tonight was a 19 year old N832MH Boeing 767-400

link

Unfortunately, I could not get a good angle nor visual on the aircraft due to the position of the gates at the airport.

When I looked at the seating assignment, the only window seat open was 27A which is directly behind the bathroom, which meant little to no recline, for me, it didn't really bother me that bad at least for a flight like this. But at least I was able to get a window seat, which initially I believed to not be able to get.

View from my seat 27A


The one good thing from this delay was that I was able to see the new A350-900 of Delta Airlines, I honestly did not expect to see this aircraft already so I quickly took a snapshot of it despite the bad angle in which we were positioned. Along with it, a Air Canada Express Embraer 175 in new colors (Which I'm quite alright with).


The aforementioned A350-900 of Delta which I believe it went to ICN.


Since we were already delayed as it is, the pilot quickly made our way to the runway and took off from the gloomy Atlanta evening. Note the Mad Dog landing in the background…


Take off!


Last light until landing close to MAD


After a short while, the evening meal service began. The menus were already at our seat upon boarding. The options were as followed:


Now I'm not a vegetarian or anything but the only thing for me that was appealing was the pasta. So I ordered a pasta and it was pretty good for me.


Once the meal service was over, the FAs gave us a bottle of water and turned off the cabin lighting. But since I don't really sleep on aircraft, I was up watching IFE on the seat monitor in which eventually changed to my phone. The seats on this one was outdated so the monitors weren't that big and neither the quality was that good either. But I had a good laugh watching Robot Chicken. Do note also that this model does not have a USB charger so make sure you have your plugs with you.


About 90 minutes before landing, breakfast was served. Today it consisted of Bagel with cream cheese spreads and yogurt with granola bits. Although I do wish the portions were bigger, but I figured it will last me until I arrive in Madrid.


Sunrise as we were getting closer to the Iberian Peninsula


We eventually began our decent to Madrid and landed using runway 32L. We made it to our gate about 0946, an hour and eleven minutes behind schedule.

Landing at 32L with Estadio Santiago Bernabeu home of Real Madrid.


Wamos Air 747-400


Plus Ultra A343


Last shot of the aircraft featuring B789 of Etihad to Abu Dhabi


Note that Delta arrives on Terminal 2 so if you want to take a Cercanias to Puerta de Atocha or Chamartin (Two train terminals) you'll have to ride a shuttle bus to Terminal 4 (no cost) Do know that if you are riding any of the long distance trains (AVE, Alvia, Altaria, Avant, TrenHotel etc), you can use your ticket to pay for the cercanias ticket for free. Otherwise it's about Three Euros to central Madrid.


See you in the next one!