I recently (October 22-24) flew Delta domestic first class on two flights, DL1429 and DL2289 between Minneapolis-St. Paul MSP and Reagan National DCA. This post isn’t intended to be a review of the flights; very few domestic flights are review-worthy after all. Rather, these flights are a peek into the state of service aboard Delta flights in fall 2021 as the carrier continues to recover from the coronavirus.
As a beginning note, these two flights are mainline, operating on an Airbus A320 and A321 respectively. The flights originate or terminate at MSP, one of Delta’s largest hubs. And there is competition on the route; American and SunCountry both operate competing nonstops, and United additionally offers competition from nearby Dulles IAD while Southwest serves Baltimore BWi. All of this is to emphasize that this is a competitive domestic midhaul flight to and from a key hub, all of which make it an excellent indicator for the carrier as a whole.
Boarding
Delta has resumed their zone-based boarding process and are no longer boarding by row. The row system was more efficient to be sure, but one advantage of returning to the zone-based system is that Delta’s IT is purpose-built for it. When boarding by row, there tended to be a lot of waiting at the gate since you never knew exactly how long it would be until your row would be eligible to board; now the Fly Delta app sends a push notification not just when your flight is boarding but when your zone is boarding. The overhead monitors in gate areas also correspond to the boarding zone, which is always helpful when arriving at the gate area late.
As passengers entered, the flight attendants distributed sanitary wipes. FAs still seem to be stationed primarily at the front of the plane and doing little enforcement of overhead bins, especially insofar as ensuring that First Class and Comfort+ passengers have adequate bin space; that said, I didn’t notice a problem or lack of space on either flight.
A small bottle of water waited for me at my seat. Delta, long the leader of consistency on offering pre-departure beverages in the US, is still not offering any service to first class passengers on the ground.
Food and Beverage
I was especially interested in the state of Delta’s catering program since their shiny marketing has suggested that things should be largely pre-pandemic by now. I was very disappointed in that respect.
Delta is still serving cold boxed meals with disposable cutlery. The food was fine–better than you might get from a grocery store deli, but not by much. I was mostly disappointed it was still pre-wrapped and cold, and wasn’t served on Delta’s glass china. It’s worth noting however that this was not the Flight Fuel pre-boxed meal that is purchasable in economy and which was served to first class during most of the pandemic, so this is a (small) step up.
Delta has made a big deal about their improved beverage selection after being one of the last carriers to return to offering choices beyond water. They’ve talked about the return of soft drinks, plus new alcoholic options such as an exclusive IPA from Sweetwater Brewery, additional canned cocktails from Tip-Top, and spirits from Du Nord, a black-owned distillery in Minneapolis. These flights had the full slate of soft drink options and the slightly older Tip-Top Old Fashioned, but none of the other new alcoholic offerings. I was especially disappointed in the lack of Du Nord on the flight originating from MSP and on the lack of the Sweetwater IPA as a beer fan. (I’ve had the new brew on one flight that happened to have it in the last few months and it was fantastic.) Additionally frustrating is the fact that there’s no actual menu for the food or drink. It used to be printed in Sky Magazine, which no longer exists. Oddly, the menus are nowhere to be found in Delta’s app, and the high-level overview found in the seatback entertainment was not flight-specific.
My understanding is that hot food has returned to transcontinental flights, but I’m surprised and disappointed that both hot food and new spirit options still seem to be missing from other domestic flights.
Service and Other Considerations
Other service elements of the flight seemed largely normal to me. Flight attendants came through the cabin several times and were attentive and happy to keep drinks filled throughout the flight. They offered the snack basket to Comfort+ passengers but, oddly, did not offer it to first class on either flight. Delta Studio continues to offer a very good selection of content for entertainment (though this is of course subjective) and wifi was fast enough and reliable on both flights. They were, in other words, otherwise unremarkable.
Speaking of wifi, one of my two flights, DCA-MSP was aboard an A321 with Viasat internet access. This was my first Delta flight with Viasat. (For context, Delta announced during the pandemic that it will have a split fleet of Gogo-powered and Viasat-powered planes, similar to American.) Viasat’s service connected quickly, though it was a bit of a hurdle to enter in my credit card information, whereas it’s saved to my Gogo account for easy connection. I didn’t see any way to save my credit card info or create an account for future Viasat-powered flights. The biggest positive of this move, from a customer standpoint, is that en entire flight pass cost just $5. On the Gogo-powered flight, a one-hour pass cost $6.95. Interestingly, Viasat seems to have Speedtest.net blocked, but Fast.com reported my connection to be 1 Mbps, which is relatively slow, but decent for a plane and good enough for working. It was a stable connection. Using VPN or remote desktop applications may be more challenging though, and I question to ability to stream video at this speed, despite the plane being marketed as “stream-ready wifi.)
Conclusion
Delta’s reputation in the domestic air carrier space is one of superior reliability and superior service; that’s why they can often charge a premium even with the poor value proposition of Skymiles. In the reliability department, Delta continues to excel, though of course this wasn’t really a problem during the pandemic either. On the other hand, when it comes to service, Delta is no longer the airline to beat. United and American have returned hot food to their first class cabins. United offers their full alcohol selection on every flight. (American is currently not serving alcohol at all.) I would like to see Delta stop having their cake and eating it too; if they have determined it’s safe to pack planes to 100% capacity and board by zone, then they should quit hiding behind the pandemic as a reason not to serve hot food or complete the rollout of their new drink options.
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