The Old First Class
 

Hi FT community,

I was just curious if anyone has any pics/ memories of what the old DL international first class was back when there were three classes of service internationally? I never had the opportunity to fly in it so I was just curious if anyone remembered anything about it or had any pics of it.

Thanks!

No pics, but I certainly remember the caviar accompanied by vodka (the bottle was in a cavity in a big block of ice) plus Dom Perignon, not to mention a selction of great food. For some time, when there were 3 classes, you couldn't get an upgrade or free ticket. The only way to do it was to pay full F fare. Even after that changed, we flew Bangkok-Taipei-PDX and IIRC there was nobody else in F, and the FA's were great.

Oh yes, I remember the days of no upgrades. Sounds like it was quite the place to be!

I was fortunate enough to be able to fly DL FC three times in the 90's. As Pioneer notes it was not easy to get up there...you had to be a Royal Mediallion (the top tier of the day) to be able to claim a FC award ticket. I burned about 200,000 miles for my honeymoon in 1993 and scored two FC tix RT DFW-PDX-BKK (with stops in SEL and TPE).

IIRC the MD-11 cabins were laid out in three rows of 2-2-2. Back then you could smoke and Row 3 was smoking. Seats were comfy enough but nowhere near the comfort of today's flat bed seats. Perhaps 150 degree recline, seat width of 22-24 inches, adjustable headrests and legrests. Large center console between seats in each pair, removable ;)

As noted by Pioneer, very attentive service. Mrs. DL and I were the only pax from SEL to BKK with two FAs and the Purser to look after our needs. Caviar, vodka, canapes/appetizers, soup, salad, entrees, cheese, dessert, all washed down by a very nice Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 1985 (we left the aircraft in BKK with three full bottles).

Return trip was equally nice although I had to deal with the unpleasant transpac reality of two Monday mornings in a day.

A few years later, as they were rolling out BE, I got a courtesy upgrade to FC on an L1011. The caviar was gone by then...I'm pretty sure that the only thing that was still FC was the seat. Pretty much the same layout and seat setup as the MD-11, but the equipment was ~10 years older and showed its age.

It's interesting that although the equipment (seats, AVOD, safety, fuel efficiency) has gotten so much better since then, the service has gotten so much worse. FC FAs in the old days were proud of what they had accomplished to make it where they were, and it showed in the level of customer service one received. Nowadays most airline staff (moreso onother airlines than on DL) are "survivors" who view the customer as an incovenience.

MUC-ATL with wife and three kids all in business on award tickets. We are all in our seats and redcoat comes up to me and says Mr. IndyDave would you please come with me. (oh oh). We walk into the first class cabin and he says that business is oversold and would like to invite me into first class.

I went back to offer my seat to wife. It was father's day and she said take the seat and happy father's day. We still have the Tiffany candy dish that they offered from the "First Class Gift Selections" booklet. Great memories.

I remember seeing a F/C pax fully reclined and asleep (the only one up there) during the takeoff on an L-1011.......Not a word was said.

Pic of Delta First

I remember flying ATL to LGW and back in the early nineties in DL First. While the seats were nice, they didn't recline as much as the BE (747/777) seats do today. They were; however, wider. The food was very nice especially the caviar. I also remember a silver serving tureen with the soup rolling around on a nice cart in First. Not only were the flights nice but on the return leg, Pete Sampras and his girl friend were in the seats next to us returning from Wimbleton.

At the risk of "outing" myself as an old broad, my first TATL trip was as a teenager in the 60's, travelling alone, in coach. I met a French gentleman in the pre-boarding lounge and he invited me up to F for a cocktail during the flight. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. There was a small bar with banquette seating. The FA made me go back to steerage after a while, but those few minutes were memorable. Don't remember what airline that was but I'll never forget the blue eyes on that Frenchman. Sigh.

Flash forward to about 1982, my next TATL was on DL but sadly, still in steerage. IIRC, the boarding door was between F & Business and I looked into the F cabin. It looked palatial compared to coach. 2x2 huge seats (huge at least to my eyes. FA's hovering with champagne bottles. People relaxing in their reclining seats. That was the day I became a mileage hoarder.

Thank for this beautiful romantic story. In the midst of the bad news of those last days/weeks, wars, oil gushing etc... You just made my day! :)

Pictures of old DL seats:

A-310 First Class Early 90's

MD-11 First Class Late 90's

767 Business Class Late 90's

I was on DL flight in the late 90's from PTY to ATL. As I approached the gate the FA noticed that I had on a FSU golf shirt and she spoke up and stated that she was from Tallahassee. got on board in my crappy middle seat in Y stuck between two rather large people. Long story short, just after take off the FA found me and asked me to gather my things and follow her. BAM! first class for the next 5 hours. Granted it was not a tatl or tpac it still was sweet. the meal was fantatic, the champagne (don't remember brand but was a vitage bottle) and of course the service. Man I miss way things used to be.

Are those all in your garage?!? :D ;)

Agree with DFW DL, the hard product has definitely improved while the service, for the most part, has gone downhill.

DL F Shortly after DL-PA Merger
 

I never flew internationally on DL on a three class plane in F. However, I did get to sample their F service on a three class plane once.

I needed to go from BWI to LAS on relatively short notice (I think the year was 1992) where I was actually doing some work on a case, rather than attending a craps table; I was short on money at the time but long on DL miles, and I was able to walk up to the counter at BWI, pay $60 and cash in the required number of miles (50k possibly) to obtain a RT F ticket. My outbound routing was BWI-JFK-LAX-LAS. The first leg was a DASH-8 commuter plane (possibly Business Express, DL's commuter partner in the northeast at the time). The next leg was an ex-PA A310; I think the plane originated at TXL, flew nonstop to JFK, and then continued on to LAX. The final leg to LAS was on an ex-Western 727.

The plane was configured with 3 classes; F had 2-1-2 seating, J had 2-2-2 seating, and I think Y was 2-3-2 (possibly 2-4-2). I remember sitting in the single seat in the first row of F. F was full (I can't remember whether it was 10 or 15 seats total); J was close to empty; and Y was close to full.

My recollection of the flight was that they had a premium champagne up front (possibly Taittinger's) and drinkable reds and whites; they had a large selection of European beers in cans; dinner service with at least three entree choices and several courses taking a couple of hours to complete; and, after the ice cream sundaes were cleared away, chocolate covered strawberries and cappuccino were offered. The F seats were unremarkable--they were like the F seats on the domestic L-1011s (which were wide by today's standards and overall pretty good BTW).

One nice touch on the flight was, during the stopover at JFK, a VHS of that evening's ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings was delivered to the FAs who played it immediately after takeoff.

I remember telling one of the FAs how great the service was, and her rejoinder was--"It should be, you paid for it". If she only knew.

I remember that DL had tried to emulate the TATL service on the transcontinental portion of the flight.

Happy memories.

Jet Doctor, thanks for the pics; I've been wondering what those looked like for years now.

It sounds like it was really quite an amazing place to be! I only wish I had had the opportunity to try it at some point while it was still around.

In the late 90's I was flying from FRA-ATL in J that had been upgraded from Y using a PMU. I had coordinated schedules with a friend of mine to be on the same flight. He had a full J ticket. We were both surprised when they upgraded us both (a double upgrade for me) to F.

I remember the vodka and caviar, and getting an extra tin to take with me. Since it was a daylight flight, I didn't care that much about sleeping so I didn't test that capability of the seats. The PTVs back then just showed several channels of movies in rotation (no on-demand) but the screens in F were much larger. The service was, of course, great.

While it is a shame that DL doesn't offer international F anymore, it was hard to justify it economically. No business would buy a F seat for employee travel and the price difference for F made it hard to justify even for the high-rollers. And of course, they aren't making any money on the upgraders and award pax.

I'm not clear with what you're saying. Are you describing the F experience from LAX-LAS or from JFK-LAX? Because you said during the stop-over at JFK...but you mentioned the first leg (BWI-JFK) being a Dash-8?

I'm confused.

Also - when was Int'l F demolished? Is the current BE as good as the old Int'l F?

From what I understand, the Hard product is probably as good if not better, especially the new flat-bed BE. However, it appears that the service aspect/ soft product is drastically inferior to the old F. I know my Dad flew the MD-11's over to England to get the cabis re-configured for BE and he flew those between about '97-'00 so I would think somewhere in there.

Flew several times in the 90s, ATL/CDG, ATL/MUN, ATL/FRA, and ATL/GTW, ATL/DUB
Dom, Stoli on ice with segruva cavier, salad fixed to order, soup served from a tureen, sumptous dessert cart. Our daughter, who was 8 (and already well traveled) was asked to assist the flight attendants carrying ice and also spent a good bit of time in the cockpit (obviously pre 9-11) at the time flew with us ATL/CDG and the BRU/ATL. She was well entertained.

Yes you got to pick from a gift (even if you were flying free)and we have a set of Tiffany Brandy snifters, I think we have 6. They stopped doing the gifts prior to the end of fist class.

Not sure when demolished but NO definitely not as good.

1. I would guess early 90's
2. Seating and electronics are probably about the same or even better, but food, beverages, and service are definitely not as great as the good old days. But still pretty good. DL is certainly not alone in this regard.

Intl. First Class was discontinued by Delta in 1999.

Now I remember. Everything served in courses. Soup. When they brought that out, I thought, "What were they thinking..." With only the slightest bit of turbulence, you would be wearing that course rether than eating it. I was actually nervous having it on my tray. Pomp over substance, IMO.

The old F compared to BE? Well, the seats and IFE are better in BE just because the technology is better. The food and service isn't as grand in BE, however. I will say this: Today's BE is tons better than the old J cabins.

The seats in the old Business Class didn't even have a real footrest.

I flew on a DL L1011-500 from ATL to HNL in 1987 in F on a bump voucher. The seats were the first generation "sleeper seats", with fold out footrests and significant recline. I don't recall anything else (IFE, service), after all, it was essentially a domestic flight on international metal. I do not know if there was a J/C cabin on the L15 at that time.

I was fortunate to fly many times TATL & TPAC in F Class on the DL 1011s and MD11s in 1990s. The service was outstanding, even if the seats were not as good as flat beds are now (although I have yet to experience them). I always remember the Ice Cold Vodka and Caviar, which was superb.

One time in the early 1990s my GF and I were flying from DUB to ATL in C Class, on separate reservations. At DUB they upgraded me as they were oversold in C, but not my GF. I mentioned that and no problem, even though my GF was on an award ticket, they upgraded her then as well. Got on the plane and the FA recognized me. We were the only ones in FC, and we had wonderful service to ATL.

These were the good old days to travel, when DL knew what customer service was and meant. I look back with fond memories on these times as they will never return.

The BE hard product is considerably better than the old International First Class hard product. Some of that is simply because the technology didn't exist back then. I remember, when they were converting over, Royal Medallions (and Medallions) had "first dibs" on the old International First Class seats. I believe BusinessElite was launched in the early-mid 1990s

Here are a few pics of an L-1011 three class config in the boneyard. International First Class

Sometime in the 90's we were flying Busomess Class from Shannon to Atlanta. While checking in the agent asked how we were and I said wonderful. The only thing better would be a First Class seat. She looked at me and said ok since Business was overbooked she moved us to
First. Service and food were wonderful and the free gifts were a great touch.

Awesome (though sad). Did you take these pics yourself? Can one visit inside the boneyard?