Delta Coach Review: New York to Barcelona [JFK-BCN]

Last week, Kristin and I went on our trip to Barcelona. I booked this trip with our Delta miles and was really excited to visit another country. Booking our flight on Delta, I tried not to set the bar too high, but I wanted to give them a fair opportunity.

I don’t believe everyone is using their miles for business travel, and there should be more reviews of coach. Since this is how I typically travel, I felt it was appropriate for a Delta Coach Review.

Delta Coach Review

Boarding:

Since I am a Delta Platinum card member, this gives me Zone 1 boarding. I don’t think it’s the greatest perk since you are in the middle of boarding zones. It is better than nothing though.

We boarded the plane before many others in coach and able to use our bins above our seats.

Overall, the boarding was fairly quick, it did help that this was not a full plane. There were many open seats in coach and even premium economy.

Seats:

This Delta flight was set up as a 2-3-2 set up, and we were able to snag 26A and 26B. I try to avoid the middle seats as much as I can, that is because I am a window seat fan. I’ll take a window seat any day of the week!

There were about 20ish rows of coach seating, I positioned us around the middle of the coach section.

These were your standard economy seats, they weren’t anything special. According to Seat Guru, these had 31 to 32 inches of pitch and had a width of 17.9 inches.

I did use my pillow for extra cushion. The seat had a decent cushion, but was quite firm. I am more of a plush fan myself and the pillow did help slightly with this.

The recline on this seat was enough to make it a little more comfortable.

As far as leg room:

Now, I stand at a whopping 5 feet 5 inches tall (if you only understood the issues of being so tall 🙂 ), so it is fairly easy to see I had plenty of leg room in my seat. If you were around 6 feet or so, I could see this being a larger issue.

My biggest complaint about the seats in coach (hopefully something that will eventually change in years to come), is the lack of a foot rest. This would make the world of difference for people flying coach.

Elevating my feet just a  few inches off the ground would make me extremely happy. We are starting to see this on certain premium economy seating (such as British Airways, or Cathay Pacific). Hopefully airlines add this to their coach sections as well.

This little addition could make economy travel more enjoyable.

Overall:

I was happy with my seat. It was comfortable enough to grab a few hours of sleep on the flight. I wouldn’t say this was the most comfortable seat I have had in coach, that probably was Lufthansa.

I really wish airlines would consider adding the foot stand to economy seats, but I feel we might see that in a few years, if at all.

In-Flight Entertainment:

The In-Flight Entertainment was pretty solid in my opinion. It had shows from HBO, Showtime, and other sources. There were games as well, but I have always found the games to be difficult to maneuver through. So, I typically stay away from them.

The screen was very responsive and didn’t require multiple touches to proceed to the next screen.

The screen did not swivel though, it stayed in the position you see it in. This could have been an issue had the person in front of me decided to recline their seat. Fortunately for me, they didn’t :-).

There was an issue that lasted about 20 minutes or so. I’m not sure if it was the weather (it was raining and very windy), but all the IFE systems on the plane all cut out at the same time.

The systems did restart and after that little snafu, worked just fine the rest of the flight.

There was a lack of outlets for a power source. If you needed to plug something in that is not a USB, you were definitely out of luck. I searched high and low, but there was nothing available.

For a 7 hour flight, I think isn’t unreasonable to have a power outlet for your seat. Unfortunately, Delta doesn’t think this to be true, well unless you are in business class.

Overall:

The IFE was very good. There was a wide selection of shows or games to play. After this short issue of the system cutting out, the IFE was perfectly fine.

The issue of the screen not swiveling could be a potential issue, especially if the person in front of you reclines.

The lack of power source outside of a USB is an issue, in my opinion. If you are someone who brings your own entertainment (tablets, laptop, etc), this could be fine if you have a USB to charge your device. If you require a plug, you could be out of luck.

Service:

I will say this was actually pretty surprising to me. I thought the service on the flight was great. My domestic travel with Delta has been hit or miss, so to have a great international service was refreshing.

When we initially boarded, the flight attendants seemed a bit cold and not interested in the people boarding. After seeing this, I didn’t have high hopes, but Delta recovered quite nicely.

After our slight delay on the tarmac due to high winds, the flight attendants started showing their personality and became quite friendly.

We were brought a warm towelette soon after take off, which actually felt quite nice after running a round airports most of the day.

Shortly after the warm towelettes were brought to us,  the flight attendants started handing out snacks

At first, I thought this was our meal for the flight. Thankfully, I was wrong :-).

Our pre-meal snack consisted of:

• Mini Pretzels
• Honey Roasted Peanuts
• Wine- Red or White.

What was amazing was the wine cart came around 3 times! I thought we were lucky to have them bring just a glass of wine. As you can see from the picture, the flight attendant poured a solid glass of wine.

In addition to the wine, we were offered bottles of water for the flight.

Beyond the snacks and the many offerings of wine, the staff did come around multiple times asking if we needed anything. The flight attendants definitely made sure we enjoyed our flight as best they could.

Meals:

I think one of the largest knocks against coach is the food. It could be the foods presentation isn’t as nice, then there’s the obvious choice of maybe the food is just terrible.

Dinner:

For dinner there were three different options:

• Vegetarian option, no idea what that consisted of. Since I did not order it
• Ham Salad
• Hot meal- Chicken and Potatoes

As you can see from my picture, I went with the chicken and potatoes. When I selected this option, I was told it was hot. Again, I was actually surprised as this was very hot. I had to give it a minute to actually cool down some to prevent me from burning my mouth.

The chicken was stuffed with broccoli and cheese and had a great flavor as well. I wouldn’t call it bland at all.

The potatoes were more on the bland side, but they were very hot as well. When I mixed the potatoes with the corn and the gravy from the chicken, they were much better.

The salad came with a creamy Italian dressing, which was very good. The lettuce was fresh and Kristin enjoyed the cucumbers and tomato from my salad :-).

I’m not a shrimp cocktail fan( I prefer my shrimp hot), but I love seafood. Kristin had my shrimp cocktail and she thought it was fantastic.

The roll was very hard and cold. I could have done without the roll. I thought this was probably my least favorite part of the meal.

Breakfast:

There was only one option for breakfast:

• Cranberry-Orange Muffin
• Vanilla Greek Yogurt
• Cheese
• Orange Juice
• Orange Marmalade Spread

The muffin was full of flavor and I’m pretty sure I could eat them all day. The orange marmalade spread made it even better.

The Greek yogurt felt like it came from straight from the fridge. I’m not a fan of warm or room temperature yogurt, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was cold.

I’m not sure why there was cheese on the breakfast menu, it did see a little out of place. That being said, I won’t ever turn down cheese. 🙂

The orange juice cold as well, and is exactly what you’d expect orange juice to taste like.

Flight Experience:

The weather leaving JFK was rainy and very windy. There was a slight delay leaving, but the time lost waiting to depart was made up in the sky. The crew did a great job making up for lost time and we arrived at our original expected time, even though we left about 30 minutes later than we should have.

The staff was much better than I was expecting for this flight. They really wanted to make the flight more enjoyable for everyone flying in the back of the plane.

Shortly after the dinner meal service was finished, the lights were turned off. This made it really comfortable to sleep. Although, instead of gradually increasing the intensity of the lights as we began to land, the lights were just abruptly turned on. I don’t know about you, but I am not a fan of that.

Overall:

I  was very impressed with Delta’s service from JFK to Barcelona. It had it hiccups, but that was beyond the crews control and did a great job overall.

The seat was nothing special, but I would love to see the addition of a foot stand to make sitting in coach better.

The food was much better than I expected and the service was great.

Have you flown Trans-Atlantic on Delta before? Or do you avoid US Carriers for international travel?

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