Quick Trip to the Beach
I needed to be in NYC over the weekend so I booked a flight to LGA instead of back home. I also needed to be in Fort Lauderdale to make a dinner with some old friends so it was easy to just drive up north from Miami and stay overnight by FLL.
Delta again offered a reasonable last-minute fare, though no cheap upgrades to be had this time.
Flight routing
- 1
- 2
- 3DL1334 - Economy - Fort Lauderdale → New York - Airbus A321
Delta Sky Club (FLL)
FLL was a straightforward airport and terminal 2 is conveniently small. Once through security it was easy to find the Sky Club.
There were plenty of seats in a variety of configurations. Based on how packed the terminal was compared to the lounge, I suspect overcrowding is not as much of an issue here.
Lots of coffee machines to drive our caffeine needs:
The food spread speaks for itself. While not the most exciting breakfast spread, it is certainly a bit better than what is offered at competitor lounges. That's about par for Sky Clubs in the US vis-a-vis Admiral's Clubs and United Clubs.
The Sky Club also offers you a nice view of some of the gates, (D6 in my case), which made it easy to keep track of what was going on.
DL1334
When I went down to Gate D6 boarding was already in full swing.
Boarding began on-time at 11:10am for my flight.
My ride was a four-years old A321-200, N105DX.
By the time I boarded the plane was already 2/3 full. You'll note that in the back half of the economy cabin, there is the tiny mid-cabin lavatory found on A321s. If you can avoid using it, I would, there really isn't even enough room to turn around to open/close the door.
We pushed back at 11:56am, 6 minutes behind schedule and took off at 12:25pm.
Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant came by to offer earbuds.
Service began roughly 45 minutes after takeoff and reached my row (28) about one hour after takeoff. I had a Biscoff cookie and a cup of tea.
WiFi was free and available to any SkyMiles member, though slightly slower than the speeds on my previous flight.
We soon approached LGA–my advice is to sit on the left if flying up from the South, you'll get a wonderful view of NYC this way.
Another look at downtown and midtown Manhattan:
Here we are passing by Arthur Ashe Stadium and Citi Field:
We touched down at 2:47pm and reached our gate at 3:01. It took about 13 minutes for me to deplane from my row.
While I found the DL domestic F to be average, in Economy DL seem to consistently do better than AA and UA. It's commendable that they still offer complimentary ear buds. Having in-seat IFE is definitely nice to distract from the pain of being in coach haha. Once United finish the cabin upgrades on their domestic fleet, they will probably beat DL on hard product, but for now DL have the most consistent cabins.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading and sorry again for the very delayed reply. Who knows how long it will take for UA to finish the cabin upgrades? The Polaris retrofit took forever and I am doubtful any international Polaris lounges will ever actually be built. I mentioned this in the previous report, but until UA retrofits all of the WiFi, Delta's WiFi advantage is a massive advantage, especially for work travel.