Hi again everyone, welcome back to another flight review. Today we’ll be flying aboard Delta’s flagship product on their A350-900 in Delta One from Seoul ICN to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I snapped pictures of this flight a while before finding out about flight-report.com, so my apologies in advance if some aspects are missing! :)
I just arrived on a short hop aboard Asiana from Beijing. When booking, I didn’t notice that Delta flies out of T2, while Asiana operates from T1. I took a shuttle bus between the terminals which took around 25 minutes, quite a long trek!
Delta and Korean have a long-standing partnership, thus Delta operates from T2 where Korean dominates. There was quite a queue at both the regular and Delta One checkin, with flights also heading off to Atlanta, Boston, and Detroit this evening.
There was also an incredibly long queue for security, with no fast track even for Korean air prestige/business travelers. The line took nearly an hour before I was through security.
Flying Delta One gives access to the Korean Prestige Lounge, which was quite overcapacity like usual. There is a buffet option but I usually go for the make your own bibimbap, which provides quite a hearty and filling meal. I also took a few things from the buffet, but the choices were rather average.
Here’s a first look at our bird tonight, the A350 always a beauty. The large glass windows at ICN T2 makes planespotting and photography quite difficult at night with the reflections. I only managed a glimpse while on the jetbridge. Stay tuned for a much nicer shot at MSP.
. Here’s the first look at our cabin. At the time, Delta was the only US carrier out of the big three featuring fully closing doors. As of now, AA have introduced their new cabin with doors, and United have also revealed future for new Polaris products with doors. (also, special mention to JetBlue mint!). Unfortunately, I wasn’t to grab a window seat today, but luckily the divider between the middle seats provides ample privacy from your neighbor. It is still quite easy for anyone walking down to aisle to see you.
Waiting at my seat was the menu, a Missoni amenity kit, headphones, a bottle of water, and bedding.
Things didn’t go off to the best start when I got a handful of some disgusting sticky substance on my safety card in the cabinet. I informed my purser who apologized and mentioned they didn’t have an extra one since this was an inbound flight to the US, but I was far more concerned about what I just touched. The amenity kit itself was quite an upgrade to their older ‘from anywhere’ kits. It featured the basic amenities such as a dental kit, socks, eyemask, and a Delta branded pen. Unlike most airlines who offer socks no one would ever wear, Delta’s ones are a perfect length and size, extremely comfortable ones that I wear quite often.
We left ICN at 19:47, 17 minutes later than scheduled.
Thus began our 12 hour and 8-minute journey to MSP. Food service began shortly after takeoff, and I was presented with some nuts, some champagne and a diet coke.
Inbound US flights out of Asia have the luxury of Asian catering for their meals, and I went with the Korean meal. Everything was served on one tray, but the presentation was very solid.
These were wagyu beef patties, with side dishes of bean sprouts, kimchi, fried eggs with mushrooms, another pickled vegetable dish, miso soup, and steamed rice. The gochujang sauce and sesame oil complimented the dish very well. One of the best meals I’ve had on a US carrier, much better than the AA meal I received out of Chicago.
Credits to AA though, they do make their ice cream sundae better than Delta. The ice cream was rock hard and quite unbreakable for 15 minutes, not bad once it began to melt a little.
Something I really appreciate was the availability of snacks at the bac of the cabin on such a long flight. I went with a shin ramen and dried seaweed.
The blanket and pillow Delta offers are both very comfortable, and interesting your neck rest also double up as a mattress. Delta provides a card explaining how you can turn that into a mattress and therefore provides no turndown service. I did find the leg room slightly shorter than I hoped for my 6-foot build. It does definitely beat out AA’s
There was also a midnight snack option of kimchi buns, Korean fried chicken, a salad and piece of chocolate. Everything here was delicious, but I couldn’t grasp why Delta decided to flood the salad which such a strange sour sauce.
Before long, we landed at MSP. Check out this awesome shot of our bird at sunset! Customs and baggage claim all work very quickly at MSP, given their small number of international flights.
The sunset A350 I promised!
