Ahead of the curve for US domestic precon products

So I’ll admit… I did not want to be in Y for this flight, but I needed to be on this flight, and since it was such a last-minute booking (as in hours), there was absolutely no chance of an upgrade, and a straight up revenue fare was not worth it at all ($2300 for one-way Delta One!), nor was the 150k award ticket. But as I thought about it, I realized it would be a good opportunity to both experience and review a product I’ve never been booked into in all my miles of Delta flying: Delta Economy Comfort, soon to be renamed Comfort+.

The Seat: 19D. These seats are decent economy seats – 34-35 inches of pitch (at least when the person in front hasn’t reclined all the way) and a reclining system that both slides the seat forward and tilts the backrest backward at the same time, which is certainly an improvement over the usual backrest tilt. So aside from shared armrests, a perfectly reasonable seat for a ~4 hour flight. Avoid seat 19F — the slide from the exit takes up the bulk of your legroom and you’ve got no underseat stowage space.

The view from behind.

The Service: slightly better than regular economy (it is the same flight attendants etc.), but as a bonus you get a free snack box and free beer and wine — what’s not to like about that! This makes the experience somewhat similar to Virgin America’s Main Cabin Select, only you can’t order your food and drink on the IFE. The funny thing is I think they actually serve the same Wente red wine (I forget the varietal) as Virgin America.

Actually tasty Luvo snacks. These are also served in F on the West coast shuttles between LAX/SEA/SFO.

The Bottom Line: I’m sure the woman next to me thought it was my first time flying, with questions like: is this food free? Do they serve free drinks, too? Do you have to pay extra for these seats? All these questions because these parts of the experience were a pleasant surprise for me. My understanding is that if you’re a non-elite you pay $99 for economy comfort on the LAX/SEA/SFO -> JFK routes, and I have to say that I think it is definitely worth it.

How to become a Delta Elite: Status is all about butt-in-seat miles, so you’ve got to fly to get status, but you can also use the MQM signup bonus from some of the rewards cards offered by Amex.

The verdict

Reviewed by

Seatlink

Date

2014-12-20

Airline/cabin

Delta 757 Comfort+ Premium Economy

Rating

3