Delta Air Lines Airbus A350 Preflight event Detroit DTW Airport – First day of Flight!

• Delta Air Lines Airbus A350 Preflight event Detroit DTW Airport – First day flight
• Inside the Delta Air Lines A350 – Cockpit, Delta One Suites, Premium Select & Coach seats
• Review: Delta Air Lines Premium Select Experience – Meals, Drinks, Entertainment & more!
• Final thoughts: Will the Delta One Suites last & is the Premium Select “too good” or not good enough?

There is just way too much to cover in just one post about the simply amazing new Delta Air Lines A350 Jet so I will breaking it down into 4 posts with the first one today reviewing the preflight event.

I arrived quite early as I was excited to be a part of everything. It seems many others did the same as TSA Pre Check lines were ridiculously long! CLEAR, on the other hand, was lightning fast (if you don’t have CLEAR yet – get it)!

I came down the escalator and there she was – Delta’s second i.e. N502DN. I asked just about everyone why we were flying ship 2 vs. ship 1 N501DN and no one at Delta seemed to know including those from the communications team present.

I did get some confirmation from pilots about my post that one of the ships did have a blown tire that impacted the wing. That ship is, as you read this, just back to DTW and flew out yesterday.

The Delta PR teams were busy early filming bits with FAs, pilots and many others. I had some time on camera talking about how excited I was to fly the jet – we will see if any of that makes the final cut.

After being handed some SWAG and chatting with some TV news folks it was on to some refreshments.

It was great to meet a number of readers on the flight and see the excitement building over this special flight event.

I went to the Sky Club and ran a photo copy of my boarding pass (so it would not fade away) and had all 4 of the pilots autograph it as a memento (they had no FO s on our flight nor the return). The rest of the SWAG included a nice Tumi Wallet, A tea diffuser (appropriate), a tiny note book, a welcome card, a gel pen with a tiny jet that went from DTW to NRT when you moved it, a 1st A350 flight pin and some chocolate.

The event then moved from the central A airport concourse to the gate with speeches from DTW Airport top brass and lots of clapping and final parts on how we could share on social media our thoughts on this first flight including a free Gogo code for all to use for the flight (smart, right).

Overall it was a really festive atmosphere preflight. But before everyone else boarded I had a chance to get a gate pass and tour the cockpit and the jet – becoming the first paying passenger onboard the new A350 jet! More on that, and the seats, tomorrow! – Rene