Review of Delta Air Lines flight Baltimore Atlanta in Domestic First

Airline Delta Air Lines
Flight DL1625
Seat --
Flight time 02:00
Take-off 05 Jan 14, 06:15
Arrival at 05 Jan 14, 08:15
DL   #34 out of 96 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 826 reviews
pertristis
By 6194
Published on 1st February 2014
Hello everyone, and welcome to my first Flight Report. From January 5th through January 17th of 2014, I flew from Washington, DC to the Middle East. Eventually, my Flight Reports will cover the following flights:

DL 1625; BWI-ATL; F Class; 5/1/2014 (Current Report)
DL 5324; ATL-YUL; F Class; 5/1/2014
AF 346; YUL-CDG; J Class; 5/1/2014
AF 3886; CDG-AMM; J Class; 6/1/2014
RJ 344; AMM-TLV; J Class; 9/1/2014
AZ 809; TLV-FCO; J Class; 17/1/2014
AZ 610; FCO-JFK; J Class; 17/1/2014
DL 2914; JFK-DCA; F Class; 17/1/2014

All Flight Reports will be written in English, because I don't speak French. Throughout the Reports, you will find great variability in the quality of the photographs: Some were taken with my iPhone, whilst some where taken with my Canon 5D mkII.

I started out at Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport. Because I live about 240km from the airport and the flight was so early in the morning, I opted to stay at the Aloft BWI. This is my second time staying at this Aloft. Given the cookie-cutterness of Alofts, if you've stayed in an Aloft, you should know what to expect. Since I'm a Starwood Preferred Guest Gold, this Aloft gave me a $10 voucher for food (along with the other usual amenities). Here are photographs of my room.

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I arrived at BWI perhaps an hour and a half before my flight. Even at 4:45 or 5:00, lines were long. I'm not sure if this is a picture of the Delta or the United line, but it probably doesn't matter, as both were comparable. Being a Platinum Medallion and flying on a First/Business Class ticket, I thankfully didn't have to do deal with these lines.

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For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the security lines. I don't remember them being long, even for non-Sky Priority (or equivalent) passengers.

As it was early in the morning, once through check-in and security, BWI was rather empty.

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Unlike, say, DCA or IAD, BWI has a paucity of amenities. The single lounge is Airspace Lounge, which is not affiliated with any airline. Delta doesn't provide passes to the lounge, and as far as I know, no other airlines do, either. Most other restaurants were closed.

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One of the few open restaurants was Pepper's Mexican Grill. Whilst I didn't eat there this time, I've eaten there before, and I strongly suggest everyone stay away from it. I ordered crispy fish tacos, and they came out cold, but not crispy. Notifying the waitress of this, I received a scant apology, and she took the tacos back, assumedly to run them through the microwave again. This time, they were almost not cold, but still not crispy. Assuming either that there are other restaurants open or that you're not in dire need of food, stay away.

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Boarding was relatively painless. As I was seated in first class, I got to board first (well, before all of those without mobility issues or small children).

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The First Class in Delta's MD-90s is set up in a 2x2 arrangement, unlike the 3x2 in the back.

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Leg room wasn't particularly fabulous, but please note that I'm 1.97m, and space is at a premium in most aircraft.

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Unlike almost all European airlines, and unlike many other domestic planes (Delta or otherwise), Delta's MD-90s have power ports in First Class. Additionally, Delta has refitted some of her planes to indicate the on-board GoGo wifi.

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While I don't have any photographs of our plane sitting at BWI, Delta had an MD-90 at the gate next door.

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Conditions at BWI were deteriorating. Precipitation—likely frozen rain or sleet—had started, and we needed to be deiced. The gate was closed on time, and we began our taxi to the deicing pad. On the way there, I had the good fortune to see a World Airways MD-11.

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Deicing at BWI is done at a centralized pad. A Delta A-320 (or perhaps A-319) was ahead of us in the pad.

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We were deiced by Frosty-1. I assume it is not a snowman.

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We're done deicing, so we taxi on to the runway, and we're off!

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Since the flight is less than 900 miles, Delta will not serve a meal. (There are a few scattered exceptions to this rule, most notably ATL-NYC and NYC-CHI.) The flight attendants passed around the snack basket, which is filled with, according to the Delta website, peanuts, pretzels, Biscoff cookies, biscotti, bananas, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and Quaker Oats chewy granola bars. I don't remember what I took, if I took anything. I know that I did have my usual Delta morning Bloody Mary. Although there was no meal, the flight attendants were fantastic, as Delta flight attendants are want to be.

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Since the flight took off before sunrise, and because of the fantastic cloud coverage, I was able to get some great shots of the early morning sky.

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Final approach into ATL was incredibly foggy. We were nearly on the ground before we could see anything. Like usual, the ATL taxi was quite long, but afforded a great view of various planes.



We deplane without incident. Here's our plane in ATL.

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See more

Verdict

Delta Air Lines

7.0/10
Cabin7.5
Cabin crew8.5
Entertainment/wifi8.0
Meal/catering4.0

Baltimore - BWI

7.1/10
Efficiency9.0
Access9.0
Services2.5
Cleanliness8.0

Atlanta - ATL

8.9/10
Efficiency10.0
Access8.5
Services8.5
Cleanliness8.5

Conclusion

A typical Delta short-haul flight. While I'd like to see improved catering, Delta's service was otherwise fantastic.

Related

11 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 98664 by
    marathon GOLD 10117 Comments
    DL's power ports have the additional advantage of being compatible with Type A, B, E, F and G plugs, and possibly a few other types too (J, N, to be confirmed). Not bad for a plane flying domestic routes.
    The neighboring DL aircraft is an A320.
    Thanks for this first FR, and welcome among the contributors !

    PS : There is nothing wrong with writing Flight Reports in English :)
  • Comment 98666 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6668 Comments
    Great First report! It's good to see another DL fan here. Looks like we are in the same area too (DC). I don't fly out of BWI too often anymore as it's not convenient for me, but I used to live in MD and use BWI a lot more--you are right that it lacks amenities compared to DCA or IAD (unless you are in the fancy newer WN Terminals). Concourse D Security used to be a mess when the AirTran gates were located there. Looks like it's gotten pretty quiet now that FL has moved to the WN side. I agree with you on the legroom in first; it's one of DL's week points. They have the tightest pitch of any US airlines in F. Nevertheless, DL offers a consistent product and has the best FAs IMO.

    Nothing wrong with writting reports in English, that's why we have the English-language site, now. No need to speak/write French :-)
    Glad you found our site and I look forward to the next reports in the series!

    Welcome to Flight-Report!

    KevinDC
    Flight-Report Community Manager and Moderator
    • Comment 287565 by
      pertristis AUTHOR 15 Comments
      Thank you!

      I'm actually based out of CHO, but since I'm a mostly a personal flyer, I tend to fly out of WAS or RIC. For various reasons, I wish I could have flown out of DCA or IAD. (As I'll get to in the future, I flew back into DCA.) My rather bizarre flight path ended up saving me $400 USD on the itinerary; otherwise, it wouldn't have been BWI.
    • Comment 287566 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6668 Comments
      BWI is definitely a haul from Charlottesville, but for $400 in savings, it's worth it. CHO and RIC are often expensive to fly out of and don't have much mainline DL equipment. I just noticed that you can see Arundel Mills in your pictire of takeoff.
  • Comment 98673 by
    lagentsecret 12186 Comments
    Thanks for sharing your first FR and welcome aboard

    This is an exciting routing and I can't wait reading all these FRs

    The pictures are quite great except few Iphone's pictures of course





  • Comment 99148 by
    KL651 TEAM 4534 Comments
    Welcome and thanks for this first FR.
    What a nice routing in perspective!
    I also find DL's FAs mostly friendly and attentive, however, the snack basket in first class is a bit cheap at a meal hour.
    They should offer something more consistent than a cereal bar or a fruit, even if it's cold.
    Looking forward to you next reports!
    • Comment 287895 by
      pertristis AUTHOR 15 Comments
      I, too, have an issue with Delta's meal service on these shorter flights, but Delta knows what it's doing. Unlike American Airlines, majority of Delta's domestic premium customers are from complementary upgrades. (I was not—for once, I paid for my tickets.) There's not much incentive to upgrade the meal services.

      With that said, as I'll post in the next Flight Report, Delta's medium-haul breakfast offering is consistent, but consistently blah. (The one exception, as I'll note [and might even throw a photo in] was ABQ-ATL, where Delta served a really nice granola instead of the usual packaged cereal. It was a very good offering, and I wish they'd expanded it.)
  • Comment 99317 by
    Sealink 67 Comments
    Great report - I was disappointed at the catering or lack of, but seems you had a good flight.

    Does anyone else think the de-icing equipments looks like something from Star Wars?
  • Comment 99538 by
    pititom GOLD 11489 Comments
    Thanks for sharing your first FR and welcome ! It's complete and a pleasure to read.

    I don't find the legroom so good in this cabin, but the power ports are a nice addition.

    Looking forward the next legs :)

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