KenfromDE

2 apparent notable features of this 747's flights: It appears that on the DTW/MSP leg the upper deck is closed. All 3 HNL/LAX flights are not available in all classes on Jan. 2. This may explain the need for a 747.

hw711

Stoodby for the flight without realizing the special equipment. When I saw usual capacity of the flight when checking the standby list, I was like since when do they fly 747 from LAX to MSP? I'm now sitting in 10A in WBC...score!!! Happy new year to me.

Janus

I was just on NW2221 MSP-DTW. I was seated in 77A (upper deck).

I did run into some odd quirks with the flight. The upgrade ran in the normal process, but pre-upgrade (with H fare) I could see all the coach and lower deck (but not upper deck) BE seats and click on the all open ones. Attempting to click on the coach seats would properly move me (including getting access to exit and premium seats). But attempting to click on a BE seat would result in an error message basically saying to call reservations. After the upgrade cleared (R fare), the seat map changed, now I could see all coach seats, plus the upper deck BE (but not the lower deck). And I could move around BE, but trying to go to a coach seat resulted in a similar error as before.

At the gate, (G8, which is much too small to hold a full 747's worth of people) about 1/2 of the people during FC zone boarding had to get redirected to see an agent. The BP swipper said something about having problems with upgrades (I was allowed on without issue). Interestingly enough, there were 3 GAs, and they all seemed far busier than one GA is on a normal flight (one seemed to spend lots of time on the phone).

Once on the flight, the FA make more than one announcement about the delayed departure being related to them trying to get some remaining pax who were standby onto the plane.

So I am guessing some funky IT stuff was happening with this flight. I am curious if the other 747 flights had similar issues. Maybe it was because the 747 does very little domestic, so it was not properly setup to handle the domestic upgrade process?

Otherwise, good flight. This was my first time upper deck on a 747, it is noticeably higher than any other plane. Got the fancy pillow and blanket (much nicer than what domestic FC offers).

This was my first time using NW IFE, and the AVOD was nice (thought it was not turned on until about 10-20 min after 10,000 ft). It seemed a bit redundant to have both overhead TVs and PTVs, but I guess they may need the overheads for the safety video? The movie selection was not large, but if I was on a TATL/TPAC, it probably would be enough to keep me busy. The only problem with the IFE was when the FA or captain came on the PA, it would be painfully loud in the headsets, to the point I had to quickly rip off my headset, less I getting hearing damage. I saw some other folks next to me have similar reactions.

The BE seat itself was quite nice, much better than the standard NW/DL domestic FC and better than the ones in the Atlantic 757-200 (it was doing MSP-MKE for about 2 months while the regular plane was out at paint). Every time I have been on the Atlantic 757 I have had issues getting the push button controls to release the component of the seat I was trying to move, resulting in lots of jerking and frustration. Motorized seat controls, ftw . Snack service was the same as domestic FC, two rounds with drinks and two rounds with the snack box. No meal service. No pre-flight drinks. (Though this was <2 hour flight, so that is what I would expect on any other domestic FC flight.)
One last thing to note. Seat Guru says that the FA seats are in front of 77 J and K. On this particular plane (maybe it is different on others), there was one FA seat in front of 77 J and one in front of 77 B. In this flight, the FA sat in seat in front of 77 B. Normally I would have taken the opportunity to chat up the FA about airline stuff, but the person in 77 B was sleeping, so I didn’t want to be rude (and thereby spending takeoff/landing in a somewhat awkward silence).

All-in-all, fun experience. Luckily, I had a justifiable business trip to bill the ticket against. Anyway, off to bead, got a busy day tomorrow here in Detroit.

NYBanker

It is a two story plane.

Janus

So THAT'S what the stairs were for...

FLYWORLDNOW

These 747-400s only look nice from the outside with their fresh DL livery. These aircraft are 20+ years old and are nothing special. I wish every 747 and DC9 would be parked tomorrow.

BF263533

In my opinion, it is hard to beat the upper deck of the 747, followed by the nose section. And for the DC-9s, I have always been upgraded on the DC-9 because the proportion of first class to coach is to high. I will take the DC-9 over the MD-90 or 737 any day because of the upgrade, and 2 middle seats on the 737 and 757.

That's just my opinion. The 77L looks really nice, but for a tall person in business class, my feet were crushed, and my head fell off several times from the narrow delta-shaped head-rest.

dsldog400

Made my work realted BWI-MSP (A319) / MSP-LAX (747) trip on 1-2-10.

Upon arriving in MSP, I saw the 747 at the gate during landing; Good!!! No equipment swap. Deplaned at G-19 and went over to G-8 where the large crowd was piled up, took a photo for my trip file, the GA called for FC boarding, and up the stairs I went. The flight was full, and I'm glad I was allowed to pay the extra nickles for FC rather than trust an upgrade. At the gate, the coach crowd, most of whom I assume were headed to HNL, seemed grouchy and impatient as they were waiting to start boarding.

I had a very smooth, quiet and enjoybale flight upatirs in 79K, with a clean and polite group of pax and two nice & attentive FA's. Snoozed, read, did some paperwork and occasionaly looked out the window for a relaxing 4 hrs.

aolj

I believe that was the exact same aircraft flown in from NRT that I was on. We arrived on the 3rd from NRT in MSP at about 10:40am at gate G8.