tcook052

Having been fortunate enough to have grabbed a Delta "sale" last May I was off to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year last week happily ensconced in my Economy Comfort bulkhead seat directly behind the business class cabin and wanted to share some pictures and feedback to help pay it forward.

After a few schedule changes over the intervening nine months since ticketing I found myself with a 7 hour layover in SEA but opted to pay the Delta lounge fee and relax there instead of jetting into town.







I liked the tall personal cubicle chairs and managed to catch a few winks in one warmed by the morning sun. My flight from YEG on AS was very early and so hadn't much sleep the night before and the lounge was nice and quiet and so spent about 5 hours reading and relaxing in it.



The A330-200 started boarding pretty much on-time and so queued up to board in zone 1 to access the overhead bins as I travel with carry-on only. Being a peak travel time the board showed a full flight.







I tried snapping a few photos of the Economy Comfort bulkhead row 10A seat I'd purchased on the outbound but was doing so on the fly during boarding with 10B trying to take their seat.



This row offers several inches more legroom than regular EC seats and so would definitely recommend trying to reserve these if you are considering upgrading from economy. There was enough room with the IFE units upright for me to squeeze by the aisle passenger without needing them to move and that ease of access was very useful.

I'm 5 foot 10 inches tall and was able to fully stretch out my legs and have my feel on the bulkhead so plenty of room. The added recline wasn't too big a bonus but the extra legroom definitely was.



Based on other review I was curious to see how the inflight meal service was compared to other airlines offerings and have to say I thought DL outperformed other N.A. airlines I've flown TATL in recent years.

The menu offered a good variety of entrée options and went with the penne pasta but apologies for the slightly out of focus smartphone picture as it seemed easier to wield seated with dinner service than my DSLR.



The pasta was uniformly cooked and not the simultaneous over and undercooked variety I've come to expect from economy meals with a nice tomato sauce that has some spice to it. A garden salad, bun, cracker and cheese with desert brownie all added up to a nice meal and for the first time in ages actually ate everything on the tray. Here's the full flight menu as was handed out:



After the meal service was over the trays were collected fairly quickly and I settled in to watch a few Academy Award nominated films playing on the IFE including Boyhood, Whiplash and The Grand Budapest Hotel having no idea of the drama that would unfold shortly thereafter but more on that in part two.

RandomBaritone

FYI, at present none of the photos are coming in: all are replaced by that gray badge that says "upgrade to Plus for additional bandwidth."

I think Flickr may be a better choice than Photobucket for embedding on high-traffic sites like FT.

tcook052

Formatting of images now resolved I'll continue with part two of the Delta Economy Comfort SEA-HKG trip report.

After the meal service was over and everyone settled in to sleep or watch some movies on DL's good IFE system around 4.5 hours into the flight the female pilot made an announcement that we would have to divert back to Anchorage due to a faulty oxygen pressurization valve. As we were already past the Aleutians on the trip map it meant an hour back-tracking to ANC to land and hopefully have a quick fix to the mechanical fault as many were heading to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year.

As we winged our way back to ANC the flight crew kept us updated about our status and we landed at dusk.



After about an hour onboard I was standing in the empty business class cabin directly in front of Economy Comfort talking with my seat mate and a few other passengers about the situation when Captain Suzanne came over and said our getting away that night didn't look good as the required parts weren't available in ANC but would be flown up immediately from SEA. She was saying it was a safety issue as they couldn't risk continuing the flight with this critical valve not working relying on the back up and I appreciated both her candor and the whole crew's efforts to handle the unexpected detour. It was announced a few minutes later that overnight hotel and transfers had been arranged and that we would be taking off the next morning at 9:15 AM so everyone disembarked and made their way to the transportation.



The Hilton Anchorage had not only rooms but a buffet dinner ready when we arrived with the staff offering such a warm welcome it was much appreciated. Having very little sleep the night before as I'd caught an early flight out of Edmonton (YEG) to SEA on Alaskan Airlines I headed right to me room as it was now past 9PM. The room had a nice view over Anchorage which luckily for the passenger was unseasonably warm as almost all like me didn't have any heavy Winter clothes or jackets.



The following morning after a hearty buffet breakfast everyone trooped to the transports to take us back to ANC to resume our flight to Hong Kong. Never having been to ANC before it's actually very scenic with a mountain backdrop behind the runways.



While I wasn't in Alaska long I did manage to spot some wildlife.



The trip map reset.



We arrived in Hong Kong about 15 hours after originally scheduled to touch down meaning I'd lost a night prepaid in a hotel but luckily had other reservations for the rest of the stay that survived intact. In many years of flying it's the first time I've had such a diversion so am fairly fortunate. You read about airlines and their dedication to safety but to see it in action is quite another thing. I thought the DL flight and cabin crew along with the suddenly swamped Hilton Anchorage staff performed admirably given the circumstances and have written both a note to voice my appreciation. The trip home went much more according to plan and so returned after a week in Hong Kong and will share more photos of my travel around the territory in another update.

RandomBaritone

Many thanks! I've seen a spate of Photobucket issues lately. Appreciate your fixing it so expeditiously.

Question about those DL seats: is there any additional padding or width beyond standard Y? I dearly wish more US-based airlines would offer a true premium economy product on their internationally configured planes.

tcook052

No, EC has exactly the same width and padding in the seats as do regular economy ones but offers 4 more inches of legroom, greater recline and zone 1 boarding. These bulkhead seats add another few inches so the legroom on these is probably 6 - 7 inches more than regular economy which is why I opted up into them at around $150 each direction for 12 - 13 hour nonstop flights. If it were shorter, say 6 -7 hours, I'm not sure I'd pay to sit in EC but was happy I did on these longer flights.

I've flown DL over the years but only on shorter routes within Canada & U.S. so this was my first time on a long haul flight with them and I liked it as the IFE holds a really good selection of TV shows, newer releases plus a wider selection of older movies and games, the choice of meals and their presentation and taste was very good and a friendly crew all helped make for a fairly enjoyable flight. Some flights beyond meal and snack/beverage service the crew vanishes but felt the DL crews did a very good job in between offering water, coffee or tea.

HLT1904

That is quite the diversion. EC is nice, but on a trip like that J would have definitely been better. Thanks for sharing the experience and I am sure the flight crew appreciated your positive attitude.

donrmcq

I was on the same flight in Economy Comfort. Yes, Delta and the flight crew generally handled the diversion well, however there were a few glitches.

Before the diversion, the individual water bottles had been handed out, and the galley was not restocked for the second part of the flight, so no individual water bottles and the juices were running out. Also my special meal (see below) the salad was wilted.

My understanding that everyone could get a $100 flight credit for future flights from Delta, but that some Skymiles members got 10,000 miles (in addition to the $100 ??). I was having my points added to my Alaska account and did not get any additional miles. My thought is that for a delay of 19 hours to reach your destination, a $100 flight credit for future flights was not adequate. I will be writing Delta, since losing almost a day of vacation and undergoing all the additional hastles of checking in again in Anchorage and going through security again should be worth more.

For information, if you have duty free, you have to have them check it in as checked baggage since TSA won't allow it on the plane, even if it is unopened. As well, the security at Anchorage was over the top, with even dogs in the boarding gate after security (and everyone already having cleared security in SEA).

A few more comments about the flight

On the outbound and inbound flights, I found that the toilets were not checked and cleaned regularly. Also that they were small and cramped.

I ordered a gluten free meal (gluten sensitive) and the SEA to HGK meals were very good and looked better than the meal options otherwise provided. However, on the HGK return, the meals were very poor. The bread substitute was dry and cake-like, and the other meals were poorly seasoned and barely edible.

On the return flight, the captain of 32 years was on his last flight, so we can a water cannon salute from the SEA crash trucks on arrival.

aeroman380

That is some report! I am glad everything worked out for you. It seems good that they provided you with the buffet. I wonder if the crew required a certain amount of time on the ground in ANC? I wonder if the outbound HKG - SEA was delayed?

tcook052

A few other passengers mentioned back at ANC as we were awaiting the flight to HKG that they'd already emailed DL and been offered the 10K FFM as compensation but can't recall if that was on top of the voucher or not. FWIW I didn't receive a voucher but wrote DL after returning home to inquire about receiving a similar offer of miles and was it has come back approved and I was also crediting to AS. The speed of the reply impressed me as it came back within 24 hours of my submitting it whereas I've waited weeks to hear back on past customer service matters with other airlines.

I wasn't thrilled at arriving 15 hours later than planned missing a portion of my holiday I'd been planning for 9 months but felt DL could hardly be expected to offer unlimited compensation given the source of the delay was a safety issue and not an avoidable or foreseeable cause. They had some ANC staff at the breakfast at the hotel talking to passengers which I thought was a nice gesture and felt overall DL did well in handling passengers during the diversion and listening to their concerns about compensation. I'm happy with the miles and the treatment received during and after the diversion.

I've asked the hotel I had booked for night of 17th Feb. for a refund explaining the circumstances and will see what they say. I'd phoned from the flight and asked that the reason for my no showing be noted on the file so will hope they show some flexibility in their rules given the extenuating circumstances.

I had the same thoughts in the hour we were awaiting a diagnosis by the mechanics at ANC but don't know whether the delay would've pushed the crew beyond their max. duty time. The flight did originate DTW that much I did note. Unknown also whether passengers supposed to fly DL home from HKG would've been rebooked on other airlines or the flight simply cancelled.

We did have a new flight number from ANC - HKG but was advised to use the original DL 281 on customs entry forms into Hong Kong and did so without issue.

donrmcq

Several of the passengers in Premium Economy requested an upgrade to Business, since only about 1/2 of the Business seats were occupied out of SEA. Requests through Twitter, phone calls to Delta, and requests at the rebooking counter were all denied. As well, 1 Premium Economy passengers was rebooked in the row behind Premium Economy until he was advised of the error. Not sure why, since everyone else seemed to be rebooked in the same seat.

One other passenger said that if he was not able to cancel the first night of his hotel in HKG that Delta would compensate him. However, a friend in HKG was able to cancel the first night stay so he was not charged by the hotel.

tcook052

Economy Comfort. Some international airlines have an upgraded economy product in a separate cabin that they call premium economy but this is quite different from DL's Economy Comfort.

There was an older couple who were upgraded in ANC to the empty business class cabin in front of EC. My seat mate had been with them at check-in when they waited for what seemed a long time becoming fairly upset while a glitch in their file was ironed out. Other than that couple no others were given business on the ANC-HKG portion.

siaa380

Its too bad you had trouble with the flight. When I went, I had my outgoing flight have to turn back to the terminal to refuel due to the fact that the climate control was throwing a warning light and on the way back I had to rebook through NRT.

Hope the rest of your trip was good and that you get some money back.