After a great four days in Kauai, it was time to head back to the mainland. As I mentioned in the introduction to this trip report, I was able to secure Delta One seats for us using Regional Upgrade Certificates on a routing from Honolulu via Salt Lake City with First Class from Salt Lake City to Atlanta.

We left the Grand Hyatt around 2:30pm for our 5pm flight, which in retrospect, was about an hour too early. It took all of five minutes to fill up with gas at Costco and 30 seconds to return the rental car at National. We were through TSA PreCheck very quickly and at the Hawaiian Airlines interisland gates by 3:15pm. Luckily, a very nice Hawaiian airlines agent got us seats on the 3:45pm flight to Honolulu without charging us for the change (which is not their normal policy).

The flight to Honolulu was about half-full on this Monday afternoon, including some deadheading Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants heading home to Oahu. We landed on time in Honolulu and made the reverse of our inbound walk back from Concourse A to Concourse F where the SkyClub is and where our flight would be departing.

At the SkyClub, we had a little over 2 hours before we were due to board our flight so I decided to eat dinner there with the hope that I would just sleep on the redeye to Salt Lake City. The food options were a cut above the usual SkyClub fare, including Kalua pork, chicken, rice, vegetables, soup, vegetarian curry, sandwiches, and a salad bar. There was also shave ice available, a couple of desserts and mochi ice cream.

The bar was small but staffed. They did not have the premium liquors you see at other SkyClubs, just the standard included drinks. They did make a nice Mai Tai (as shown above). The staff was friendly and even brought around freshly baked cake slices on a cart for all of the passengers. Note that the bathrooms in the lounge are very small (but clean).

Around 7:15pm, we walked the short distance to gate F1 to board our flight. This was an older 767-300, but the later time compared to the Atlanta A330 nonstop made it a much better option. Even if there had been upgrade availability on the nonstop to Atlanta (which there was not), it leaves at 3:30pm which not only makes it basically impossible to sleep, it would mean leaving the resort in Kauai before noon to catch the interisland flight.

DL 347 HNL-SLC
Scheduled: 20:00-06:00 (+1 day)
Actual: 19:54-05:53 (+1 day)

Despite its age, the plane was in decent shape. Sparkling wine, orange juice or mimosas were offered pre departure by the flight attendants.

The purser came around to confirm my pre-order (Kalua pork), but I let him know just to hold on to it and I would possibly eat later in the flight as I would try and sleep first.

We took off on time and were promised a fairly smooth ride into Salt Lake City. I tried to sleep for an hour or so, but just couldn’t doze off. After a visit to the (clean) restroom, I asked for my dinner, more for review purposes as I wasn’t that hungry.

I had a sparkling water with lime to go with dinner. The pork was just OK, but the mac and cheese was tasty. The dessert was also very good. Considering it had sat for an hour or more after everyone else ate, the food held up pretty well.

I slept on and off the rest of the flight and finished the Disney+ Beatles documentary I had downloaded for the trip. The screens on these 767s are ancient and tiny. My wife’s screen didn’t work and she received 10,000 SkyMiles for the trouble (worth about $150 when using the 15% discount on award seats for Delta Amex cardholders).

We landed early in Salt Lake City, which I was pleased about as we only had a scheduled 55 minute connection. I knew the gates were not far apart and in fact we had time for a quick visit to the SkyClub which I will review in the next segment.

The Delta One flight on the old 767-300 served its purpose. We rested and had plenty of personal space despite the age of the seat and the aircraft. With Premium Select rolling out on most Hawaii flights, this is one of the few that will still allow direct upgrades to Delta One using regional or global upgrade certificates as long as the aircraft is still in service.

Up Next: Delta Sky Club Salt Lake City and Delta First Class SLC-ATL

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