Review of Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Berlin in Economy

Background

This flight was the first flight on my trip to Europe. I routing would look like this: MSY-JFK, JFK-TXL, VIE-CDG, CDG-JFK, JFK-MSY. The first two flights on the way there would be on Delta and so would the last flight on the way back while the other 2 would be on Air France. 
I had a rather hefty 6 hour layover between my first flight and this flight.

During this layover, I spent lots of time plane spotting, shopping, and eating in JFK's terminal 4.  

boarding

My flight was departing from gate B30. At this time, Terminal 4 was extremely crowded with almost every gate having at least 1 departure on a wide body aircraft. My flight was delayed for about 20 minutes to clean it. Boarding was efficient and all priorities were respected. I proceeded to board in my zone, Main Cabin 3. 

My plane to Berlin today was a N841MH, a 767-400 wearing a special Relay for Life livery. At the time I flew it, it still had to old interior but I believe that now Delta has begun to update the interiors of these aircraft. I was looking forward to this flight because at the time, it would be the largest plane I had ever ridden on.

on the aircraft

I had chosen seat 35A, a window seat on the right side of the plane by the wing. Upon arrival to my seat, there was a blanket and a pillow provided. I had already brought my own pillow but the provided pillow did seem to be decent. However, the blanket was very uncomfortable. During the boarding process, music was playing which created a nice ambience. 

The pilot announced that the updated flight time would be 7 hours and 5 minutes from takeoff to touchdown. We had to sit at the gate for about 15 extra minutes due to some luggage issues down below. We pushed back only 2 minutes behind schedule. We were number 3 in line for takeoff and we were in the air soon.

 I knew that the IFE's on 767-400's were going to be outdated, so this was not as big as a surprise to me as other passengers. One thing that disappointed me greatly was that there was no outlet or even usb plug in any of the economy seats. Luckily, I had several portable chargers but I would have been in trouble if I did not bring these. My IFE looked as if it was hanging out of the seat in front of me when I first arrived. A flight attendant noticed this and came over and snapped the frame back in place. I attempted a few times to use the IFE, but it was extremely unresponsive and there was no volume, just static. I pushed the start button for some help and about 20 minutes later, someone finally restarted it.

inflight service

The first inflight service was the distribution of water bottles and menus. I liked that Delta gives Economy passengers menus because it really enhances the dull experience economy usually is. I am a picky eater and I had already eaten so I explored what they offered, but I did not plan on eating anything. After the menu and water bottle distribution, hot towels were distributed. I previously flew Delta transatlantic and they used hot washcloths like towels for economy. However, this flight used something that resembled a wet wipe. These "wipes" were served to us cold which disappointed me.

The drink service began about an hour into the flight and I chose a ginger ale, which I was given a whole can of. I was also given a small bag of some Cheez-It's and some biscoff cookies. During this service, my IFE turned on again and seemed more responsive but its volume was still just static. This static made it impossible to watch anything no matter how hard I tried. I eventually realized that I would have no IFE which was a bummer but I was luckily able to watch some movies on my plane.

breakfast and descent

I had about a 2 hour nap in my tight and extremely uncomfortable seat. I woke up with about 3 hours remaining in the flight. Breakfast boxes were passed out with about 90 minutes remaining inflight. 

At 9:44 A.M. local time our descent was announced and we touched down rather abruptly at 10:08 A.M. Upon arrival, I noticed that the Berlin airport was TINY. The airport only had one gate for wide body arrivals. The hall for customs was very tight and hot since it was not air conditioned. Customs was very painless though and I was soon out of the airport in no time. One interesting thing to not was that I realized a majority of the flight were actually German nationals, not American tourists like myself.