Delta’s business class offering isn’t very competitive on its 767-300 aircraft, but it does offer some consolation to families in that it’s incredibly easy to assist your seatmate midflight.

This flight occurred in November 2024.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Thankful in The Bahamas
• WOW: Delta One Lounge LAX is Incredible
• Review: Delta One 767-300ER LAX-JFK (this post)
• Review: Delta One Lounge JFK
• Fun in the Sun: A Review of Grand Hyatt Baha Mar
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Breakfast Restaurants
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Dinner Restaurants
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Activities
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar – Pools and Beach
• Wet and Wild Excitement: Baha Bay Water Park
• Grand Hyatt Baha Mar Thanksgiving Activities
• Review: Copa Airlines 737-800 Business Class NAS-PTY
• Review: Copa Club PTY Terminal 2
• Review: Copa Airlines 737-MAX 9 Business Class PTY-LAX

Booking

I ended up booking this flight with cash between LAX and JFK airports, with a connection to The Bahamas (NAS) on a separate Delta ticket (that one paid with Delta Skymiles). I was further able to subsidize this trip by choosing Delta gift cards during a flight bump earlier in the year. If you wanted to find the best price, you could consider checking out an OTA aggregator like Momondo, where you might be able to find a better price than through the airline directly, but just note that you might not get much help if there is a problem with your booking or if you need to get a refund.

I miss the days of being able to reliably find an excellent points price when using airline miles. Delta, notorious for having poor redemption values on its flights, would have wanted well over 100,000 Skymiles for the flight. It would have been more efficient to purchase the flights with your Chase Sapphire Reserve card and reimburse yourself at 1.5 cents each, or with an American Express Business Platinum card with the 35% rebate on points. You could try to look for this flight to book with partner miles, but I’ve found Delta is very inconsistent on releasing award space that partners can book.

The last thing I’ll say on potential booking strategies is booking an economy fare and hoping for an upgrade. Delta doesn’t offer upgrades as cheaply as American seems to offer upgrade prices, but they can get cheap if the cabin is expected to be empty. With Delta Platinum status, I have been upgraded once on this route in the past year so elite upgrades are a possibility. If you have Regional Upgrade Certificates (RUCs) or Global Upgrade Certificates (GUCs) that can also work, but you’re going to have to still play the upgrade lottery game to get in the cabin unless you use a GUC and book Premium Select (but in that case, your potential savings is much less since you’re buying a more expensive fare).

Arrival and First Impressions

We spent time in the Delta One Lounge at LAX when we saw our plane arrive at Gate 31A. Rather conveniently, the gate is the closest one to the lounge. It’s nice when you don’t need to schlep it a long distance to get to your plane.

We arrived in the boarding area to find that boarding had already begun, somewhat by design since we wanted to maximize our time in that lounge. As we boarded, I was thanked for my Platinum status (which would unceremoniously become Diamond status after taking this flight). We then stood in a lengthy line waiting for our seats.

Once the line cleared up, we quickly found our seats for this redeye flight to New York JFK in rows 2 and 3 in the center. The 767s that Delta flies gets a lot of angst amongst the frequent flier community for being quite outdated and uncompetitive. I absolutely agree with that sentiment if you’re flying alone. Even if you’re flying as a couple, it’s still not great given the sheer lack of privacy you have in this cabin compared to more modern business class cabins. If you’re flying alone, choose a window seat in an odd-numbered row for marginally more privacy.

But from a family perspective? I actually don’t mind this arrangement. Why? It’s rather simple. Because in these seats I can easily attend to my kids if they need help at any time in the flight. On planes like the A350 or on a 777, it’s going to be a bit tougher to assist your children as they’re not going to be in arms length in some cases. On this plane, you could help without getting out of your seat. I’m not going to say I like this cabin layout (far from it), but I think some of the concerns of this seating arrangement don’t apply to families with younger children. And before you say it, yes, other airlines like Singapore Airlines or Qatar Airways offer a superior product for both individuals flying alone and for families. Delta could certainly improve this cabin and I hope it does, but it’s not quite as terrible as it’s made out to be for families with younger children or others who may need assistance midflight.

Alex, my seatmate for this flight, wanted to show off the seat before the flight. Obviously, the legroom was excellent for someone his height, but I thought it was fine for me too. The seat itself is fairly comfortable, but the padding could be thicker, especially when used in a sitting position.

The bedding provided is just a pillow and a blanket. It would have been nice to have an extra mattress pad included given the thinner seat, but I don’t think it was that problematic to get sleep on this plane, but I’ll get a little more into this in a bit.

On the side of the seat was an electrical outlet, a reading light, and… an ethernet cable port? If nothing else, that alone speaks to how old the plane is. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen one on an airplane.

The table and seat controls also were a bit dated and not quite as responsive as I would have liked.

Also awaiting us at our seats were headphones, slippers, and a Missoni amenity kit. I’ve never found airline slippers that fit my feet and these were no exception.

Inside the Missoni amenity kit was the typical set of goodies–a dental kit, a pen, earplugs, eyeshades, socks, and some lotion.

Food and Drinks

The flight attendants came by to offer a predeparture beverage of either orange juice or champagne. I chose the champagne but naturally my seatmate wanted orange juice.

Delta allows you to pre-order a meal, including selecting between options that are not available unless made in advance. Despite other options being available, I feel I prefer the options found in the menu. Note that there did not seem to be a special choice of meals for children. As Mark in the comments notes below, you can find the option for a child’s meal under Accessible Services > Special Meals when logged into your reservation at least 24 hours before your flight departs.

At 10PM, an hour after take-off on a redeye flight, the lights were dimmed, so I apologize for the blue tint to all pictures from here on out. It certainly didn’t seem that blue within the cabin when flying it at the time. The flight attendants handed out hot towels and then brought out their drink carts to ask what each passenger would like to drink.

I ordered a pinot noir, which came with some room temperature nuts. I don’t think nuts need to be warmed but it’s far nicer when they are warm.

At around 10:30PM, meals were served. Alex chose the lasagna while I went for the meatballs. Both dishes were good and ultimately tasted like how you would expect them to take. Of course, I was completely stuffed still after the elaborate dinner in the Delta One Lounge.

At around 10:45PM, dinner was cleaned up and desserts were offered and we received a cheesecake and a fruit and cheese plate.

Wi-Fi and Entertainment

Delta offers free Wi-Fi on most of its planes by signing into your Delta Skymiles account. This is still being rolled out across its fleet and is not expected to be complete until the end of 2025. Given this was a redeye flight and I was looking to maximize my sleep, I’ll admit that I didn’t bother checking if this particular plane had it available.

As for entertainment, it seemed to lack relative to the typical Delta plane flown within the United States. There was no availability of live TV on this flight, which was a bit disappointing not being able to watch UCLA vs USC football (though it was largely a forgettable game on both sides). If you’re looking for movies for kids, you might also want to check out what’s available outside of the dedicated kids section. There were child-appropriate movies like Ratatouille available that for some reason don’t show up in the kids movie list.

This is a rough redeye flight…

This flight is booked as a redeye flight, scheduled to depart at 9:10PM and arrive at 5:25AM. Accounting for the three hour time change, you’re looking at a flight that’s booked to be in the air for roughly five hours. However, on top of that, dinner service lasted until nearly 11PM, which is slow for a redeye flight. Add in the fact that seats have to be in upright position half an hour before landing, and this flight actually arrived 15 minutes early, and we were only able to get a couple of hours of sleep on this flight. It’s tough especially on the kids but thankfully they’re troopers at this point in their lives and weren’t phased by it.

…However, I should point out that having the Delta One Lounge available makes this much more functional as a redeye flight. Dine in the facility before the flight and immediately go to sleep on the plane–that’s how I would do it differently if there is a next time. The food on the ground is far superior to the food served in the air, so if you’re interested in maximizing your sleep, this is the way to do it. Put on those eyeshades in your amenity kits!

Recommendation: It’s Fine…

It’s not a competitive business class seat and service was on the slower side for a redeye that I would have hoped would be a bit quicker to maximize sleep. If you can get past that, you’ll find a decent business class experience with adequate catering but ultimately the inflight experience lags behind other carriers offering premium transcontinental flights. If you’re looking for a better transcontinental experience, you’re better off checking out JetBlue Mint class.

If you’re traveling in business class with someone who might require assistance midflight, the seating arrangement in the plane might work for you. And the Delta ground experience is superior to what you would encounter on other airlines. But if you’re judging based purely on the inflight experience, your money might be best spent elsewhere. Truth be told, this was one of the weaker premium cabin inflight experiences in quite a while.

What airline that offers premium transcontinental services do you prefer to fly?