Delta Airlines: A Pleasant Surprise
Written: Jan 17 '06 (Updated Jan 18 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very pleasant personnel, reasonable fares, and well connected routes.
Cons: They have yet to get many things right.
The Bottom Line: Among the other American Carriers, Delta Airlines is the best.
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| arathi's Full Review: Delta Air Lines |
On our recent vacation to Italy, we flew Delta Airlines from New York to Rome and back. When hunting around for bargains for airline fares to Italy, we found reasonably priced tickets on AlItalia through their website. It was only later, while checking in at the Seattle airport, we found out that AlItalia had a code share with Delta Airlines, and that we would be flying on Delta all the way from Seattle to Rome.
Our itinerary was to fly from Seattle to New York on Delta Song and thereafter fly from New York to Rome on Delta. We returned to the US using the same route.
Good Service:
We have flown Delta on international routes a couple of times about 10 years back, and found out that they were no where in the same league as an Asian airline. To be quite honest, we had very low expectations from Delta, but I have to say that this time around, we were pleasantly surprised.
The check-in at New York could have been smoother; there were long lines, and only two counters to check in, but the person checking us in was very polite, pleasant to talk with, and apologized for the delay. We had asked for a bassinet for our 14 month old, and in spite of getting a confirmation, the bassinet was a no show. I had expected this to happen and had braced myself for the fact that my fussy teething toddler would end up on my lap all the way to Rome, but what I had not expected were the genuine apologies that we got from all the stewardesses on board.
We had ordered special meals (vegetarian), and as expected they had botched that up also, but as soon as we pointed out their error yet again, a stewardess went all out to look for something for us to eat, and brought vegetarian meals (they had Indian vegetarian) for us from the First Class section, with silverware and all. And the food was not bad at all.
On the 8 hour flight from New York, our daughter did not sleep at all, and had to be walked on the aisles for pretty much the whole time. My husband and I took turns in walking her, and we spent a considerable amount of time in the service area in the back of the aircraft. All the stewardesses without exception were nice, and even offered to hold our daughter for sometime. Our daughter was held and entertained by the crew for about 30 minutes, and we gratefully took a break.
The point I am trying to make here is that the earlier robot like personnel on Delta have been replaced with real human beings. Ten years back, when I had traveled on Delta, I went without food all the way from Detroit to Frankfurt because they did not have my vegetarian meal for me, and their attitude about it was the typical American Carrier one: Tough Luck.
After that flight we had switched to Asian carriers for our yearly trips to India and elsewhere in the world, and have never looked back since. We will probably stick to Asian carriers when traveling to India, but it is nice to know that we have more options now when traveling elsewhere in the world.
The Plane and In Flight Entertainment :
The plane was reasonably comfortable; as comfortable as you can get in economy class of any International flight. The leg room was adequate, but I felt that the seats were a little narrower than the other airlines that I have flown in. The plane was clean. The restrooms were also clean and stocked with L’Occitane hand wash. The service area at the back of the aircraft was well stocked with beverages, and snacks.
We had individual entertainment units positioned on the back of the seat in front that enabled us to watch a movie, several television shows and sitcoms including the cartoon network, and some video games. The units also had the ubiquitous plane plotter feature to show us where exactly we were at any given point in time, and how long it would take us to reach our destination.
The aircraft looked like an older model, and had only two bassinets available. That is probably why we did not get the promised bassinet, but then why promise when you are not sure…The same thing happened to us on our return flight also.
Other Details :
On our way back to the US, the check-in at the Rome airport was painfully slow and very inefficient. But I suspect that this was more of an airport infrastructure problem than an airline one. And the airline was heavily overbooked. Delta was offering $1000/person and a hotel room to anyone willing to trade their tickets for the next day.
On our way back to New York from Rome, two meals (lunch and a snack) were served on the aircraft, and both of them included vegetarian options. For Lunch, they had a cheese tortellini with tomato sauce, and the snack was a vegetarian pizza. But since we had ordered a special vegetarian meal, we literally got what we had asked for: some steamed vegetables with some rice.
This brings me to the other gripe that I have with a non-Asian airline; if you order a vegetarian meal, they immediately assume that you are also vegan, and bring you a few boiled vegetables, and a little white rice, and call that a meal. However, the stewardesses were again nice to us and brought us the vegetarian pizza in addition to our special order meal. The moral of the story here is if you are flying out of Italy; don’t bother ordering a vegetarian meal because they almost always serve something vegetarian also.
The planes took off and landed on time, and we had no problems with our bags either. We paid $900 roundtrip per ticket all the way from Seattle to Rome.
Final Note:
Despite a lot of problems, I was pleasantly surprised with the attitude of the Delta personnel. We will probably fly them again, given their reasonable fares, well connected routes, kid friendliness, and last but not the least, their very pleasant personnel.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
arathi
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Arathi Srikantaiah
Reviews written: 65
Trusted by: 42 members
About Me:
Aditi was born on Oct 9, 2004.
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