Delta Business Elite Seat and Flight Review

I don’t write a ton of flight reviews generally because there are just so many out there. I’ll write about a unique experience or when something really stands out on a flight.  This was my first international business flight on Delta in the new Delta Business Elite cabin (Delta recently rebranded their inflight experience while refreshing some planes.)

Here was my experience.  I flew from Atlanta to Lima, Peru onboard a Delta 767 (technically I flew from Tampa to Atlanta, Atlanta to Richmond, Richmond to Atlanta and Atlanta to Lima) for $1300  round-trip (thanks to Renee @DetaPoints and DeltaMileageRun.com for helping me discover this great fare!) (note: as it turns out, I had to make a change to one segment of the trip   and Delta refunded me $141 so the trip ended up costing me $1159. For those of you counting, that earned me just over 14,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles.)

The Delta to Lima crew was great and I had a very good experience onboard that flight. The food, inspired by Chef Michelle Bernstein, looked completely unappetizing, but it actually tasted quite good.  I wasn’t in love with the Delta seats, but they were a heck of a lot better than any US domestic first class I’ve flown.  I tried to compare them to other two-class cabins I’ve been in and I found myself making comparisons to US Airways Envoy Class – the actual seats are the only thing US Airways wins on.  The Delta seats seemed a bit more claustrophobic and had less storage in the seat.

My return flight was a little less thrilling.  I had reserved seat 8A and apparently even though the system let me book it, that was reserved for the pilots so I was reassigned to the only other open seat, 1A.  The disadvantage of sitting in 1A is that the crew talked the entire time and the curtain didn’t really block the light from the galley well.  This was a New Year’s Day flight and the majority of the crew was not too happy to be flying on the holiday and they weren’t afraid to let everyone know. The business class purser was the only crew member with a smile and she was super friendly the entire flight.  At one point a crew member who was mid-cabin made an “announcement” over the speakers and I’m pretty sure she didn’t realize she was broadcasting the nasty message to the entire plane full of people as she was quickly scolded by another crew member she also yelled at a passenger later and the purser intervened.

I wrote a separate post about the amenity kit, which was a highlight of the flight!  Overall it wasn’t a bad product, just not my favorite by any means.  Will I fly it again?  Yes, because I’ve switched from US Airways Chairman and working towards Delta Diamond this year.

What do you think of the Delta experience?