I had a very pleasant flight on Delta from Los Angeles to Atlanta on a refurbished A350-900, now a “Delta One” branded flight that included many of the amenities onboard you would except on a longhaul business class flight.

My Return To Delta One On The A350

I was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago and did a same-day change from a connection in Minneapolis to one in Atlanta, noticing that the A350 flight to Atlanta departed around the same time as my A321 flight to Minneapolis.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Delta is now branding its flights between Los Angeles and Atlanta that operate on a widebody jet as Delta One, similar to the way American Airlines brands its widebody service only between Los Angeles and Miami as Flagship.

So when I checked in and saw I had a Delta One purple boarding pass instead of the standard red first class boarding pass, I was double-excited, not just to fly on the A350 (it has been some years), but to use the Delta One Lounge at LAX before departure.

For that reason, I arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before my flight (typically I cut it very close and arrive about 45-60 minutes prior to departure), utilizing the posh Delta One check-in facility on the arrivals level of Terminal 3. The Delta One Lounge has aged well and I enjoyed a delicious breakfast as well as great coffee and 30 minutes in a massage chair that was almost as good as the real thing.

Chilaquiles with avocado at the Delta One LAX Lounge

This flight departed from the Tom Bradley International Terminal, which was about a 10-minute walk from the lounge.

Onboard, I found a refurbished cabin reflecting Delta’s latest color palette. The seats are darker, the blues are gone, but the cabin looks refined (it would have looked even more refined if the mood lights had been turned on).

The seat is very comfortable and now features a wireless charging port for your mobile device, though like so many such devices, I could not get it to charge…

The cabin remained dark for the entire flight:

(I don’t know why people shut their blinds on daytime flights, but that’s another issue for another day…)

Like an international flight, flight attendants offered printed menus, Missoni-branded amenity kits, and slippers.

Breakfast was served after takeoff and was served on a single tray with a yogurt appetizer, salmon side dish, main course (I chose eggs with sausage), and a mini-scone (other choices were French Toast or a breakfast burrito). A very nice breakfast overall that began with mixed nuts (a bit odd for a breakfast flight, but I’m not complaining).

Later in the the flight a snack basket was offered and a warm chocolate chip cookies followed by a piece of chocolate were distributed before landing.

You never know about Wi-Fi and so I managed to complete all my essential work before the flight (at the expense of my sleep), but the Wi-Fi worked well and was free for SkyMiles members. I watched a sci-fi movie I very much enjoyed on the interaction between AI and the way called Mercy.

I’ll share more about this in my full review, but the bottom line is that I always try to get on a domestic widebody when I can and was very happy to fly through Atlanta…

Oh, speaking of that…I had quite a connection there thanks to a late-arriving flight…Air Traffic Control slowed inbound traffic and we landed quite late.