Review of Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Washington in Economy

First Trip to the Middle East

Much like my LHR-JFK flight, this was a rescheduled Delta flight that was part of my original positioning itinerary from January 2024 that got messed up as a result of Etihad's cancellation.  This is the first time I've taken the shuttle from JFK actually.

JFK Terminal 4

It was a pretty smooth and easy journey from T8 to T4 via the air train.

Once I got to T4, however, it was a complete packed mess.  It took me a while to figure out where to go for the CLEAR that accompanied TSA-Pre.  I think this is probably the first time I've flown out of T4.  In any case, the CLEAR checkpoint is at the end of the hall.  Conveniently for Delta fliers, it lets you out right next to where the Delta One Lounge is (it would open a week after I flew this).

Thunderstorms in the area had led to lots of flight delays.  Here's a look at the situation in front of the Centurion Lounge (I didn't even try).  This was the situation in front of just about every lounge in T4.

Right next to the Centurion Lounge was the Chase Lounge, which wasn't much better.  Priority Pass holders were essentially just turned away and CSR holders were asked to put down their phone numbers.  I would get a text about 45 minutes later that a spot had opened up for me, but at that point I didn't even bother.

I headed to my gate to try to see if the Sky Club was any better.

The T4 Sky Club by the A gates was a bit hard to find, past this narrow corridor.

Delta Sky Club A Gates

At first I thought I was going to be out of luck since they had a sign outside saying the Sky Club was at capacity.  However, when I went inside to ask how long the wait will be, it turned out there was no wait!

I was quickly welcomed in and then up the escalators to the lounge proper.

There was plenty of seating available at this Sky Club–I wonder if the sign outside deterred a lot of would-be lounge entrants.  While there were lots of people in the lounge, there were still plenty of empty seats available.

Like most lounges in the US, the center of the lounge had a bar.

There was also a side room with lots of empty seats, this is where I parked myself for the majority of my stay.

Beverage stations had the usual coffee machines and soft drinks.

Here's the buffet, which was pretty standard across Sky Clubs.

There was also a semi-outdoors terrace that I only discovered towards the end of my stay.  Pretty much no one was sitting outside.

From the lounge I could see a Virgin Atlantic A350:

An Emirates A380:

An Etihad 787-9:

Sorry for the quality of some of these plane spotting pictures–they were taken through a window after it had rained.

DL5785

I had received an email and text notification that DL5785 had been delayed for about an hour–assuming that was true, I would have expected to board sometime around 9:30-9:40.  However, everyone got a text at around 9:15 saying that the flight was departing at 9:30pm and to go to the gate.  This led to a number of us rushing out of the Sky Club, which was luckily situated right above the gates.  However, when we got to the gate, there was no sign of boarding.  One lady who sprinted to the gate yelled at the gate agents that she had asthma and seemed to have some sort of gasping issue (didn't seem like an asthma attack, but I am not a medical professional); she seemed perfectly fine 15 minutes later.

Boarding actually began at 9:19pm.  I was forced to gate check my bag and was told I can pick it up off the luggage claim at DCA.

Having no status and seated in the back meant I was among the last to board and did not get an empty cabin picture.  In any case, Delta's ERJ-175 economy cabins are arranged in the typical 2-2, but it's a rather tight fit.

I was seated in 12A on this packed flight.  Of course, when I got to my seat, there was still overhead space available–go figure with these gate agents forcing people to unnecessarily gate check bags.  Maybe it's because I don't pay attention to other countries' domestic flights, but it seems like we're the only major aviation country where this regularly is an issue.

A somewhat tight fit, but good thing I'm only 5'8.

Doors closed at 9:40 and we pushed back 5 minutes later.  However, the Captain announced that we wouldn't be able to take off for a long time because of how backed up the traffic was–he estimated a 30-40 minute delay because there were 30 planes ahead of us.

We essentially just did laps around JFK for the next hour.  Technically you can't get up when taxiing, but the same lady who said she had the asthma attack just got up to use the lavatory and ignored the flight attendant telling her to sit down.  Nothing else happened.

We ultimately took off at 10:41pm, 56 minutes after pushing back.

There was nothing to report on the flight because there was no service, not even water after forcing us to sit on this cramped plane in the dark for an hour before takeoff.

Hey, at least the landing view flying into DCA is still as beautiful as ever.

We landed at 11:22pm and reached our gate 3 minutes later, but had to wait another 4 minutes to find the ramp crew.

One final insult to injury, the escalators weren't working–at least it's a very short flight of stairs.

It took about 17-18 minutes before our bags arrived on the luggage belt.