**REVIEW** Delta Airlines (and Delta Comfort)

I thought that I would use my experiences of this latest flight to review Delta Airlines for both their customer service and their Comfort seating offering.My itinerary was Anchorage (ANC) to Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) and to my final destination of Des Moines (DMS). Since this is a blended review, I will preface remarks with CS or DC when speaking about Customer Service or Delta Comfort.

The Anchorage counter staff was okay. Courteous and efficient, they didn't seem to have much to do since most passengers checked in electronically or via one of the consoles set up in the airport. I did (and always do) my check-in via a phone app. At the counter, I only had to hand in my luggage (pre-paid) and show I.D. to confirm my information. I even filled out and attached my own luggage tags.

Ted Stevens Airport (ANC) is pretty basic and I like that. Gates are called just that - "gates" - so that it's easy to locate and navigate where you need to be. With such diversity in the mix, simplicity and uniformity are important when traveling. That;s my opinion anyway. At Ted Stevens, gates and signs and walkways are easy to find and use.

That last point is going to come up later.

The flight crew on the ANC to DSM leg was kind of awesome. They were helpful but not overbearing. I wonder how many people realize that flight attendants are on board primarily to help out in the event of an emergency - not to just to serve and pamper passengers. I sometimes lose sight of that fact myself, but I appreciate an FA who makes the job look easy. There was just that kind of FA on my first flight. She was as nice to the "regular" passengers as she was to those in First Class.

Now. Here is where I have to talk about the worst part of this trip. It had nothing to do with the plane, the seats, or the onboard crew.

I'm not sure who to blame for the fact that when we landed in MSP we had to sit on the taxiway for about 20 minutes, but I'm going to blame the gate agents for not helping more once we docked and some of us had to race to make connecting flights.

This is where my trip went bad.

While taxiing, the pilot mentioned that we were going to dock at Gate F. My connecting flight was going to board at Gate C. I mentally ran through the letters - C, D, E, F - and thought, Eh, shouldn't be that bad.

Right. It shouldn't have been but... I did ask the agents standing on the jetway how far the C gates were. One was just robotically saying to each of us passengers, "We have carts waiting up front." So I assumed he was directing us to keep moving and we'd have some assistance making it to other gates. There are reasons that it's bad to make assumptions and, in this case, one of the reasons is that the gate agent was a liar. There were no carts waiting anywhere. I couldn't even find another gate agent to ask about this. Since it wasn't useful to just stand there being mad, I asked the first person I saw where to find the C gates and took off in that direction.

Here is where I hate the way things are labeled at MSP.  I saw nothing labeled directing passengers to gates. I did see lots of overhead signs indicating "concourse". A B C D Concourse. Because I was feeling stressed and worried about missing my connection, I really resented not having the assurance that C concourse actually meant C gates. Each time I passed someone wearing an airport badge, I asked if I was headed toward the correct gate. Just when my legs were getting stiff, I heard one of those carts coming up behind me. I practically carjacked the driver and demanded that he get me to the C15. If I'd had to keep hoofing it, there is no way I'd have made the boarding. As it was, I raced up to the gate agent and was waved through immediately.

So, yeah, I'm not too happy with that part of the trip.From what I could tell, C gates and F gates are nowhere in the same time zone. It would have been nice that, since our deplaning was delayed, if the Delta gate staff had been more helpful.

To sum up, I find that it is worth it on long trips to upgrade to Dela comfort. I've seen other reviews that opine the extra leg room doesn't make up for the narrow seating but, in my case, it helped. Tall people will definitely want to have the extra inches. Of course, I was lucky to have such lightly booked flights. (Although, it wasn't much of an advantage to have a row to myself when I couldn't raise the armrests!)

There is an older (and better) review done by The Points Guy.

Peace
--Free

Live Blogging the Trip (first leg)

It's been a rough night.

Leaving for the airport is never easy when you are leaving loved ones, even if you are headed toward more loved ones. Leaving "Boo Boo" (DJ) hurt so bad that it knocked all the breath right out of me. I was doing a decent job of holding it together until he had a meltdown in the driveway.

Not  DJ
But I'm just saying

OH! Damnit, that kid broke my heart.

I won't go into how badly I cried off all my makeup once I made it past saying goodbye to my niece and nephew who brought me to the airport. It took both of them, yes: one to drive and onee to keep me from leaping out of the car and running back to Boo Boo.

Not me
But I'm just saying

Now a word about the American Airline phone app my niece had me download beforehand: This was a mixed experience. Trying to use the app to view my flights was tricky (and never actually worked), but once I did get it to show my "mobile boarding pass," things got good. For one thing, it was nice not to have to worry about keeping track of another piece of paper (even though I had a moment of wondering where that piece of paper was). The best part? Using the mobile pass to sail right through the TSA checkpoint.

Let me stop and tell you the worst part (for me) of going through airport security (I mean, other than the possibility of having to throw out makeup, lotions and potions that go over the allowed amount). For me, the very worst part is the shoe drop. Taking off my shoes around people who don't know me, love me, and won't run screaming from the callus on my right heel... Well, this is stressful.

Not only did I not have to take my shoes off but, because I am too lazy and absent-minded to carry and keep track of more than my backpack as a carry-on, I didn't have to submit to any kind of hassle. I just waltzed right through that scanner and went on my way. Nice. Saved me so much time.

Not my feet
But I'm just saying

With all the time I did save, I was able to get started early on my phobic fantasies of wings falling off the plane midair.

Another good part of the mobile boarding pass is that it's easy to keep track of. Also, it updates with gate changes and such. Super cool. Just super.

The flight was (thank my God in heaven!) uneventful. The worst thing I can say about actually flying that first leg is that the attendants were forgettable. I think I saw one of them crack a smile before she realized she had broken the rules by doing so... Also, I have to say that the airplane was one of the dirtiest I've been on. Dingy, grimy and raggedy seatbacks and dust that just seem to float in the air and stick in my throat.

I had a window seat so I got to cry some more as I watched Alaska disappear from sight. The ladies sitting on row with me were cool and I was embarrassed when they remarked that the plane seemed like one from the early 20th century. ~sigh~ They were a couple of either best best best friends or lovers. They are on their way from a visit to Alaska to a visit to New York. They had Polish (I think) accents and they were very funny when we all noticed the food prices on the on-board menu. There was a decent looking picture of an expensive pastrami sandwich. For what it cost, I'd do better to fly out and have lunch with Guy Fieri. (What is with me and all the Guy references lately?)

At any rate, I've had bad experiences with the way real food actually looks like no matter how good the photos are. For the price of airline food, I'm not letting my wallet take any chances.

Not the airline food.
But I'm just saying

The food was out of the question so I opted for a cup of coffee. I needed something to counteract the crying, wine and Valium. Too bad the coffee was only a poor imitation of anything that should legally being labeled and sold as coffee. It was brown, I'll say that much. Mostly, it was a lukewarm tea-like concoction. And I am insulting tea by even making the comparison. Like I said, it was brown.

I had a moment of panic when we started making the descent into DFW. There was some floaty-tippy-rocky kind of movement that lasted long enough to make that awful coffee bounce around in my gut. I calmed down long enough to say a lot of prayers and compose dramatic goodbye letters in my head to my family. Then we just landed.

Right now, I am in the Admiral's Club, drinking real coffee and using up all the wi-fi I can to play Farmville 2. (I knew Facebook would come in handy somehow, someday.)

Seven and half more hours to kill. I'll blog the next leg of the flight when it comes around...

Peace
--Free