Flying the new Delta Airlines A330-900
I recently flew on one of the newest Delta Airlines A330-900s in their fleet at the time of writing, tail number N427DX. This aircraft was delivered to Delta in December 2023, making it approximately one month old. While I don't intend this to be a review by any means, I wanted to document a few of the things I found interesting about the aircraft and the service aboard. It may read like a review to some, but this is as much for my own future reference as yours, dear reader. I'm not going to offer any conclusions here.
As a disclosure, this is my first time flying Delta since before the pandemic; I don't have allegiance to any airline in particular, but my most-often traveled airlines include United, American, ANA, and Alaskan Airlines. I tend to fly whoever has the lowest price with the right departure time. I'm currently considering deepening my relationship with Star Alliance carriers via United's MileagePlus program, but I'm currently undecided and will likely post an update if/when I reach a conclusion detailing my rationale.
A Decent Place to Sit
Delta's Economy cabin on the A330-900 is a 2-4-2 configuration, a rare sight for me as I normally travel on the 787 and its 3-3-3 layout. The seats are plush and reasonably comfortable with a soft, supple head rest. I do wish the side adjustment of the head rest held its shape a bit more, it would reset to being flat without much pressure. The padding though was excellent, probably the best I've ever felt sitting in economy.
The seat doesn't recline particularly far, but the bottom cushion slides forward a bit which helps support my longer legs. I'm 6'4", and there's about two inches of space between my knees and the seat in front of me. That's at least one inch more than American offers on their 787-8, and is on par with ANA and JAL's superior leg room on their international 787-9's. The tray table is a bit small, but is perfectly capable of supporting a 13" laptop. Power outlets are positioned on the pillars between the seats on the row in front, instead of under the seat cushion (a welcome sight). However, frustratingly there is only one outlet for every two seats. This includes the center four seats, where there is only 2 outlets (one between each pair of aisle and middle seats). Be prepared to share with your neighbor, or have a small power strip with you to let both seats charge simultaneously.
Food!
Economy passengers were offered a choice between a pasta, butter chicken, and ginger pork on this route between Los Angeles (LAX) and Tokyo Haneda (HND). Although the entree and potato salad were delivered as you'd expect—in the small rectangular container they were heated in, covered in aluminum foil—refreshingly they were served on a plate rather than a large tray. It was a minor difference, but a nice change of pace for sure. Utensils were made from bamboo and were given to us in a napkin free of plastic wrappings, which was also a pleasant surprise. The butter chicken and rice was actually quite good, especially when compared to in-flight meals on other carriers.
Halfway though the flight, they raised the lights to ~50% (very annoying if you're a light sleeper) for a drink service and a warm chocolate chip cookie.
The secondary meal service consisted of a "Mediterranean Breakfast Calzone, Egg & Cheese" in a box inscribed as such ("whatever the hell that is," I thought to myself), and a small bowl of fruit. I didn't have to wait long to find out that the "calzone" was nothing more than a dense, flavor-less breadstick with a substance that vaguely resembled the look of scrambled egg in the middle. Incredibly disappointing in its own right, it's even more egregious given the quality of the meal served at the beginning of the flight.
A personal complaint of mine, when departing at 9am and arriving at 3pm the next day it feels a bit strange to get a lunch service on departure followed by a breakfast service at landing. This complaint isn't specific to Delta, it seems to be a common trend across the industry. I'm sure others probably disagree, it's that way for a reason of course.
Delays, Delays, Delays
Now, according to the wonderful people over on the FlyerTalk forum, Delta's newest A330-900s appear to be plagued with mechanical faults and delays. My flight was no exception, shortly before even arriving at LAX we were greeted by an unspecified delay of about 75 minutes before we were able to get underway. Based on largely anecdotal evidence, at least some of the faults appear to be due to Airbus's attempts to shave weight and make the A330-900 more efficient, at the cost of the durability of the fixtures in the cabin. As one user noted, they were delayed leaving London due to an arm rest that was stuck in the up position (FAA requires them to be in the down position during takeoff and landing). I can't speak to this myself as nothing in the cabin on my flight was glaringly broken once I stepped on board, but it'll be interesting to see the long-term durability on cabins of the A330.
Delta appears to be continuing to take deliveries of the A330-900 for revenue service as far as I can tell, so they're obviously banking on this aircraft to be a critical part of their long-haul mid-traffic fleet.
Connecting to the World
Wi-Fi on this aircraft (at least, directly after departure) was decently quick for satellite-based internet service. fast.com measured 59Mbps down/1.5Mbps up, with an unloaded latency of 582ms and a loaded latency of 1.4s. While this isn't incredible by any means, the download speed performed admirably and is more than enough to stream 720p video. While Delta currently offers Wi-Fi service on their domestic flights for free, service on this flight cost $15. The Delta website claims Wi-Fi will be free on all international flights later in 2024, but that remains to be seen. There was also an option for "Free Messaging", which included service for things like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
As a delightful surprise, video platforms such as Youtube and voice-chat applications like Discord and Google Meet were not blocked on the network, which is not always the case on other carriers. For instance, on a previous flight I took with American last month, Discord was freely accessible however popular streaming sites like Youtube were blocked (streaming video on American's 787-8 was still possible, however speeds in the APAC region were poor. I was able to stream using the video hosting platform NicoChannel on that flight).
There is a glaring issue with the Wi-Fi service on offer from Delta on the A330-900, at least on this particular route between Los Angeles (LAX) and Tokyo Haneda (HND) here in January 2024. This aircraft's internet connectivity is provided by Viasat which, on the surface, would normally be a good thing. Viasat's network is far superior in bandwidth to competitors like GoGo—when you're inside the coverage area. Due to the failed launch of Viasat's Viasat-3 Americas satellite in the second half of 2023, the launch of the Viasat-3 Asia-Pacific satellite was delayed. This results in a coverage map for Delta which includes the United States and southern Canada, a small part of south Alaska, Brazil, the Atlantic, Europe, and the Middle East. Glaringly, on this particular route, Wi-Fi service is only expected to last approximately until passing Seattle, with some additional coverage lasting about 45 minutes to an hour appearing as the plane passes the southern coast of Alaska.
For some reason, Delta has pushed forward with retrofitting their older A330-900s, originally equipped with GoGo Inflight, with Viasat's hardware. This isn't a problem on transcontinental and transatlantic routes, but for routes operating over Asia and the Pacific (including routes to Hawaii), selling Wi-Fi even at $15 feels overpriced for a maximum of 2.5 hours of connectivity on an 11+ hour flight. Now, if Delta's claims are true about the service becoming free later in 2024, and if Viasat can get their APAC satellite launched and performing properly, I may consider Delta as my primary carrier when flying across the pacific. For now, considering the fact that I need to work on flights, it's not an option.