The next morning starting with a very quick breakfast at the hotel, followed by a 10 minute walk to the rental car center, where I took the shuttle to the terminal. (The hotel provided a shuttle but the times were quite inconvenient, as it was departing only at 6 and 7 am. With my flight being at 8 am, I did not want to take a chance to miss it by taking the 7 am shuttle). This is another reason why I booked this hotel : The proximity with the rental car facility where I knew from past experiences that they had frequent bus services to the terminals.
Being in a previous life a holder of status on the « European side » with each of the three alliances (LH Senator, BA Gold and AF/KL Gold or Platinum), I always considered that AA was giving the most benefits to their alliance partners when travelling with them. With a generous luggage allowance, and thus, for all the passengers on the same booking reference (3 x 32 kg – I don’t even get that on BA !), lounge access when flying domestically and economy plus for free at time of booking, they are clearly ahead of DL, where you can still take 2 x 32 kg (when travelling domestic – the DL website is unfortunately not very clear on this topic for Skyteam elites) and COULD score an economy plus of first class upgrade (but nothing is sure), but don’t have any lounge access or UA where the luggage allowance is of one piece only, you need to pay to get economy plus but get access to their lounges. With AA, you get everything.
So this little aparté was to say that it was my first time flying on Delta, and while I heard may good things about them (including from an AA flight attendant !), the beginning of my journey with them started with an automatic email received in the morning stating that my flight to Cody, Wyoming was delayed of 90 minutes… This came after numerous schedule changes which happened between the time I booked a couple months ago and now. So I was skeptical about what to expect next… Between the missing luggage and the late connection, I was afraid to have a bad frequent traveller karma…
Since I did not have any luggage to put on hold on my next Delta flights, check in was done in a heartbeat using the self service kiosks. (As usual, I did 24 hours before departure the online check in but I like to carry a hard copy of my boarding pass with me). The area near the DL counters was quite empty at this time of the day, and surprisingly, TSA was cleared within a few minutes. So it took me about 10 minutes only to get from the terminal entrance until the gate, where I saw on the departure screens that I got upgraded to economy comfort, thanks to my AF/KL Gold status.
Ultimately, Economy plus on DL is better (on paper) than on AA as you get some additional benefits, so I was happy to be able to test the economy comfort section, even for such a short flight.
The boarding process on DL is a bit different than on AA as it contains only 3 boarding groups : Premium for first class passengers and DL Diamond status holders, SkyPriority for Economy comfort and Skyteam elite plus card holders (Including me as AF/KL Gold member) and finally the general boarding for all other passengers.
Delta boarding area in LAS
Delta Boeing 737-800
Boarding started on time, 30 minutes before scheduled departure time.
Delta Airlines – DL2140 – October 11th 2017
Las Vegas Mc Carran Intl LAS – 08:00
Salt Lake City SLC – 10:28
Boeing 737-800 – N385DN – Economy comfort, seat 14D, aisle.
The flight was completely full that morning but we still managed to depart the gate ontime ; however, it took us a good 20 minutes before taking off as it was the peak hours for departures. Immediately after taking my seat I saw a clear difference between the economy plus on DL vs AA on the exact same type of aircraft. First, my DL seat had an individual entertainment screen, Secondly, each seat had a USB plug and access to a regular power outlet. The inflight entertainment on Delta, called Delta Studio features a classic selection of movies, series and audio programs, but also live satellite TV, which I found pretty cool. It has also a moving map feature and some details about the particular aircraft you are in as well as a description of any other plane in the Delta fleet.
Economy comfort on Delta’s Boeing 737-800
The service was covered by 4 young FA’s from the New York JFK base and consisted in a cold or hot beverage and two Lotus Speculoos (simply called « cookies » in the US, those were actually made in Belgium) or pretzels.
Delta’s service
The service was ok, and the crew always showed a « friendly face » during the flight. Considering the short flight time and the slightly bumpy conditions, the crew did not manage to serve the middle section of the aircraft but apologized on the PA. We landed on time in SLC under the sun and it took a 5 minute taxi time to get to our arrival gate.
I was a bit suprised to see that we landed with most of the window shades down, I did not even see the landing coming !
Delta’s hub in SLC
Cabin Crew : B+
Seat : A-, if I consider this is an economy class seat
On time performance : A
Meal and beverages : B, if I consider this is economy...
Overall experience : B+, again considering this is economy.