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Delta First Flyers Club - A220 Inaugural

Delta First Flyers Club - A220 Inaugural

Old Feb 8, 2019, 1:45 am
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Delta First Flyers Club - A220 Inaugural

Warning: Image heavy! There is a trip report video at the end of this post.

When Delta announced the inaugural A220 flight to be operated on January 31st, I jumped on it right away. There would be two A220 inaugurals on the same day, LGA-BOS departing first, followed by LGA-DFW, with DFW-LGA departing around the same time. I booked quickly and was able to snag one of the few remaining window seats, 16A on the LGA-BOS flight. The celebration was not long for the world though, as later on, the US Federal Government shut down due to a dispute preventing the passage of a new funding appropriations bill. The shutdown affected the FAA where the final approval to operate these aircraft could not be obtained due to the FAA inspectors being furloughed.

In January, it was announced that the US Federal Government would reopen (albeit temporarily), and Delta announced a postponed inaugural flight. Through the help of a friend who had a PR contact at Delta, I learned that the rescheduled inaugural would be a week later, on February 7th. I tried to get my flight changed to a week later, but like many others, was unable to get the change fee waived as Delta had not made an official announcement yet. Right after Delta made the official announcement, I was able to get the change fee waived, and since the news of the new date did not travel as fast as the initial announcement, I was able to snag the frontmost row in the regular economy cabin, able to select a Preferred seat at booking as a Gold Medallion.

Upon arrival at the airport, there was a special check-in desk for the event. But, as I found out, that desk was just for media not flying on the flight to obtain gate passes to pass TSA.

At the gate, there was a stage set up for the event, and there was a large media and travel blogger presence.



Delta also had breakfast catered by OTG for this event



With the aircraft parked at the gate, an opening ceremony including speeches and a ribbon cutting ceremony, boarding began.



An interesting thing to see was that there were representatives from both Airbus and Bombardier on the jet bridge; neither of which appeared to have joined us on the flight.



As I settled into my seat, 13A, I looked out the window and saw that the inaugural A220 to DFW was parked next to us.



On every seat was a card with a commemorative pin for this inaugural. Notable people on this flight were: Ben Grannucci, writer for NYC Aviation in 12A, The Points Guy crew in 12 D and E as well as in First Class, Thomas Pallini, writer for AirlineGeeks was in 1A, and Jason Rabinowitz, editor of airline sites such as Runway Girl Network and Airline Reporter was in 1B. My seatmate in 13B was a representative from Pratt and Whitney. In 15B was Chris Dong, writer of Point Me To The Plane on BoardingArea. Also on board were Ben Wang, writer for Airways Magazine, and Chris Sloan (in first class), a television media producer.




Delta's A220 comes with Delta Studio, Delta's own seatback entertainment system. When I tapped "My Flight," it showed the details of the aircraft although the flight number and destination were incorrect (It displayed the ferry flight from the night before. The flight number, origin, and destination would end up not changing for the entire flight.) An interesting note is that it still displays the old designation for this aircraft, the (Bombardier) CS100.



When I tapped on Aircraft Details, it had to run an unarchiving utility (remember, this plane is brand new!) before it would display anything.


Oops!

But once that process finished, it displayed more details about the aircraft. The initial screen displaying CS100 ended up not changing.



Tapping on Flight Tracker brought up the Rockwell Collins Airshow. The airshow shows all of the relevant information pertaining to the flight such as origin, destination, flight path, aircraft location, distance to destination, time to destination, altitude, speed, and outside temperature. The map was zoomable and pan-able, as well as displaying time zones, which part of the Earth is currently lit by sunlight, as well as a HUD display.




After panning around the map for a bit, it crashed, revealing that Delta Studio is Android based.


Oops!

As this was a very short flight, the crew tried their best to provide an inflight beverage and snack service before we landed, although there was a significant line for the rear port side lav, as all of the bloggers wanted their "loo with a view" instagram photos. I decided not to partake.


Hey! That's not a Biscoff!

The sun rose just before landing, giving us opportunities for sunrise shots. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity was short lived as we descended into the cloud cover.



We landed on runway 4R in Boston, and taxied over to Terminal A. We had a short wait on the taxiway as our gate was occupied (which is a common occurrence for Delta in Boston). After the E175 was pushed from our gate (A8), we pulled up to it and deplaned. I don't know why we did not get a water cannon salute. It was ~40 degrees out. I heard it was due to either a concern about icing after takeoff (apparently the tail doesn't have an anti-icing system), or that Massport Fire was unavailable to do it.



And here is the video:


Last edited by diburning; Feb 8, 2019 at 1:52 am
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 2:58 am
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They really do some show with the insugurals👍
offerendum is offline  
Old Feb 8, 2019, 5:21 am
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Thanks for sharing! I love that the flight number for the launch of this new AC is that of a of retired AC
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 7:01 am
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Cool report! Thank you for sharing. I would love to fly on an inaugural flight sometime.
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Old Feb 14, 2019, 7:25 am
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Nice pictures! Can't wait to see this plane on some of my MCI-based flights in the future.
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