Review of Delta Air Lines flight Los Angeles Detroit in Business

Airline Delta Air Lines
Flight DL1506
Class Business
Seat 1A
Aircraft Boeing 757-200
Flight time 04:25
Take-off 28 Oct 14, 06:55
Arrival at 28 Oct 14, 14:20
DL   #34 out of 95 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 826 reviews
KévinDC
By SILVER 4700
Published on 31st January 2015
Hello everyone and welcome to the final report in this long series of flights from Washington, DC to the Big Island of Hwaii and back.

The routing:

Washington-Reagan DCA - Los Angeles LAX, Alaska Airlines, B737-800. Economy
Los Angeles LAX - Honolulu HNL, Delta Air LInes, B757-300, First Class
Honolulu HNL - Kailua-Kona KOA, Hawaiian Airlines, B717-200, First Class
Kailua-Kona KOA - Los Angeles LAX, Delta Air Lines, B757-200, First Class
Los Angeles LAX - Detroit Metro DTW, Delta Air Lines, B757-200, First Class [THIS REPORT]
Detroit Metro DTW - Washington-Reagan DCA, Delta Air Lines, MD88, First Class [NO REPORT]

After a redeye flight from Kona, I was in full zombie mode at LAX. We had a little over 45 minutes between flights, which was plenty of time when you don't have to go back through security between the 2 DL Terminals at LAX. We get to the gate just as boarding begins.

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Our 757-200, designated by delta as a 75E. This is Delta's international configured 757 with BusinessElite seats in the front. These birds are becoming rare as lie-flats are being installed in Business turning the 75E into 75S. The seats on the 75E are the old recliner Business class with 160 degrees of reline. It's not a lie-flat, but definitely much better than Domestic First seats. I would have really loved to have had this plane on the KOA-LAX overnight leg!

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Boarding was surprisingly quiet…no horde of gate lice as is usually the case on DL. We are among the first to board. It's always nice to turn left when boarding a 757 :-)

The old BusinessElite seats are starting to look old-school, but they are super comfortable with international business class standard seat pitch.

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My seat in 1A.

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The legroom is excellent…what a difference from the tight space on the previous leg!

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These seats may be getting old, but they are heaven compared to the F seats on the last flight.

Orange juice pre-departure drink. This will be an alcohol-free flight-report…yes, those are rare for me :-)

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We pushback ahead of schedule with a beautiful morning light.

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United B787

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Video of the takeoff



We take off facing west to the Pacific then turn left to head back towards land.



I started to fall asleep right after takeoff, but I tried to stay awake for breakfast as I was super hungry since the last thing I ate was the sandwich on the KOA-LAX flight.

Breakfast is served over the California desert.



The FAs come through the cabin with a bread basket. I chose a warm croissant.

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Las Vegas



After breakfast I reclined the seat and started watching Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Very good movie, but I was so tired I fell asleep while watching.

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I slept the whole rest of the flight until an FA came to wake me to put my seat in the upright position for landing.

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Fall colors on approach to Detroit.



Last view of this old BusinessElite cabin that won't be around for much longer.

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Our 757 in DTW



Thanks for reading and see you soon for a new series of flights!
See more

Verdict

Delta Air Lines

8.1/10
Cabin9.0
Cabin crew8.0
Entertainment/wifi7.5
Meal/catering8.0

Los Angeles - LAX

7.6/10
Efficiency8.0
Access7.0
Services7.5
Cleanliness8.0

Detroit - DTW

8.9/10
Efficiency8.5
Access9.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness9.0

Conclusion

A very good flight on this 757 equipped with an international Business cabin.

Comfort: After a somewhat uncomfortable red-eye from Hawaii, getting these seats on a domestic flight (outside of the usual JFK-LAX/SFO/SEA Premium transcon routes) was heaven!

Crew: Pleasant and attentive

Catering: Decent breakfast for a 4 hour flight.

IFE - PTVs are in the armrest and are a bit on the small side. Aside from that, there is a good selection of entertainment that you expect on international long-haul flights.

On-time departure and arrival.

Related

10 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 128427 by
    NGO85 SILVER 1963 Comments
    The Landing Strip billboard is the highlight of any arrival/departure into DTW :)

    Your breakfast offering looks much better than what jetsetpanda recently had SFO-MIA on AA. Sure you aren't regretting that shift in loyalty?

    I don't think you can even compare the domestic/international 757 configurations; completely different leagues. Does DL operate international 757 service out of DTW or is this plane just making trans-con hops?

    Thanks for the report.
    • Comment 309806 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER AUTHOR 6668 Comments
      Haha, yes what a classy billboard. Cheeky and appropriate name for a gentleman's club situated next to an airport. Yeah, domestic and international 757 configs are not comparable, just kind of funny that I had a domestic F cabin on the longer overwater flight and an international config on the domestic leg. I think this 75 was just doing transcons. NWA used to do a lot of Transatlantic 757 service from DTW, but I think now most 757 TATL traffic is out of JFK/BOS/PHL/PIT on thin routes and the TATL routes kept from DTW are mostly 767 and A330 now.

      I had a similar breakfast on AA to Jetsetpanda's recently and found it decent...there were 2 choices, one of which was an omelette that looks very similar to the DL breakfast. I wouldn't say I regret my switch in loyalty to AA, and I've had some good experiences with AA so far, which I'll post at some point, LOL...but I will admit that DL is more consistent with customer service. Overall I'd say AA catering is better than DL on domestic midcon type flights, but DL is way better when it comes to transcon and international. Apparently starting today UA is now the best in domestic F catering, but I'll need to see some reports to confirm. Might just all be marketing hype UA is throwing out there to help improve their tarnished image, LOL.

      Thanks for stopping by!
    • Comment 309873 by
      NGO85 SILVER 1963 Comments
      As far as your upcoming US flights go, all I'm going to say is good luck and I hope they have enough alcohol on board to help numb the experience.

      Unfortunately, I'm only given 18 days vacation/year (one of the many perks of living in Japan...) so it makes travel difficult and means I'll surrender my status this year. To quote Horrace Greeley: Go West, young man. I haven't been to Europe since college (you can stop gasping now), so at the end of March I'll be heading 'somewhere' on that continent (tickets are purchased, but destination will remain a mystery for now). Since I don't have to worry about upholding status, I can be a little loose with my routing and try out 3 new airlines and 4 new products.
    • Comment 309875 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER AUTHOR 6668 Comments
      LOL Thanks, yeah alcohol always helps :-)

      Yes, I guess Europe is West for you! Looking forward to the reports to the undisclosed European destination :-) 18 days of vacay isn't great, but it's not any worse than what most companies in the US give you to start. There are definitely advantages to not caring about keeping status, like the ability to fly several carriers, like you say. Before I discovered the perks of Elite status and how addictive all that it entails can be, I used to fly a fair amount but a lot less. Instead of doing 100K+ miles/year of which maybe only half are trips I actually need to go on and the rest are mileage run/mini vacations, I used to do 1 or 2 long-hauls a year in Business. Now I spend way more money flying around to get free upgrades that I probably wouldn't need if I flew less....it's like a vicious circle, lol...but I have no desire to go back to dirt status anytime soon. Fingers crossed that AA doesn't ever buy into the revenue-based mileage program trend...wishful thinking.
    • Comment 309882 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER AUTHOR 6668 Comments
      Oh wow...that is rigid. Makes me want to complain less about my job and my 4 weeks. As a French-American in the US I'm jealous of the 5+ weeks they get in France, but I'm thankful I get more vacation than most folks here in the US. Yes...I'd be happy to be freed from the shackles of UA too. And it looks like a lot of UA's Elites have been fleeing them for years. And yeah, if you just fly J there;s no point to status except maybe during IRROPS. On the bright side you must have a good bit of UA miles in stock and the one good thing about MileagePlus is the ease of booking low-level premium awards which are practically nonexistent with DL and getting harder to come by with AA.
    • Comment 309811 by
      NGO85 SILVER 1963 Comments
      Last time I was in McNamara Terminal (back in 2013 doing IAH-DTW-NGO when the B744 was still doing the DTW-NGO-MNL haul), I only remembered seeing two B757s and they were doing the shuttle to MSP. Early afternoon it was all TPAC departures (B747/B767/A330), so I didn't know if there were some night TATL departures on 757s left (UA loves these out of EWR).

      With Chelsea Food Services eroding away at IAH, I wouldn't believe that hype, sounds more like smoke and mirrors :) My brother is an AA elite having lived near DFW so I haven't heard too many bad things about AA from him, it just might take some time for the product to stabilize post-US merger.

      Always a pleasure reading your reports, it helps satiate my hunger to fly since I still have too many weeks until my next journey.
    • Comment 309871 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER AUTHOR 6668 Comments
      Thanks! Glad my reports can help :-)
      After several months of flying almost every week, I'm on the ground for two weeks then got another series of transcons...on US Airways this time...I'm going to go into it with VERY low expectations so that I won't be too disappointed :-P

      Yeah, I think you're right about the UA catering. It's just marketing hype. The day they hire Do&Co to do their catering, maybe there'll be something to it. For now, I don't really buy it.

      All of my friends who are AA Elites (all ExPlats) are very happy with AA. And the 8 SWUs a year for ExPlats is more generous than any other program for top Elites. So I'm happy about that part, although so far I'm 1 for 2 on SWU success, but it was the hardest route in the AA system so hopefully I'll have better luck on my next long-haul trips. Where you headed off to next?
    • Comment 309876 by
      NGO85 SILVER 1963 Comments
      18 might not sound bad to a Westerner, but there is fine-print: Saturday is a working day in Japan and I don't get to pick when those vacation days are (pre-set as end of March, middle of August, and end of December).

      Since I'll be flying infrequently, I'll just go J every time, so the extra perks you get from *A Gold flying Y are not so useful to me. I'll be happy to be dirt again, haha, and don't forget this frees me from the shackles of UA so I'll be able to pick a new alliance once I get out of here.
    • Comment 309872 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER AUTHOR 6668 Comments
      Thanks for your comment! Yeah, the AA breakfast is not quite as good IME. But there was an option of omelette on my last flight. I took the strata like you, so I have no idea what the omelette looked like.

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