It’s been a long time since I flew Delta One on an international flight. I think it was in 2017 when I flew to and from London on the old 767-300 (which is still flying around unfortunately). I was looking forward to the trying it on Delta’s flagship aircraft, the A350.

As I mentioned, I actually paid about $2400 each for these tickets as I couldn’t find award seats home on the day we needed. This was not only a decent price for a 12 hour business class flight, but it will help us both toward re-qualifying for Delta status in 2026 (me – Platinum, wife – Silver).

We boarded through the second door and turned left toward our seats, 5A and 6A. Delta One on the A350 is in a staggered 1-2-1 configuration. I took 5A as it is closer to the window and my wife had 6A. The reason we took seats along the window is because the center seats don’t have overhead air vents.

We were greeted by the flight attendant on our side and the purser who were very pleasant and welcoming. We were offered a predeparture beverage and I opted for the sparkling wine.

The seat was in great shape as it should be as this 10 year old aircraft was recently refurbished to add more Delta One seats and generally refresh the cabins throughout.

You can see there is a USB-C charger and a wireless charger (which did work) as part of the cabin refresh. The bedding consisted of a decent sized pillow, a comforter and a lumbar pillow that cleverly rolled out into a mattress pad.

For some reason I didn’t get a picture of the pre-order options, but in addition to the menu below, there were additional options of pork shoulder and barramundi. I could have sworn I ordered the fish, but the flight attendant said she showed I had ordered the pork.

I liked that the menu booklet also contained an explanation of the bedding and Wi-Fi service, although the Wi-Fi would not be available until we got closer to the US thanks to a big South Pacific sized hole in ViaSat’s satellite coverage.

Delta One was just about full, but boarding seemed to go pretty quickly so we pushed back early for our 12 hour flight to LAX.

DL64 A350-900 AKL-LAX
Scheduled: 13:35-05:50
Actual: 13:28-05:45

We had a relatively short taxi and waited for a Jetstar plane to land before we took off at 13:43. I decided to watch the movie Is This Thing On? based on a true story about a guy from Liverpool who becomes a stand-up comedian after a mid-life crisis. They Americanized the story for the movie, but it was OK as an airplane movie.

Unfortunately, both my IFE and my wife’s kept pausing and skipping randomly so they reset both. It didn’t really help, but I made it through the movie and then just switched to watching episodes of Paradise on my iPad that I had downloaded.

Lunch (Dinner if we were on LAX time) was served not long after takeoff. After the warm towel service, It began with a drink and warm nuts. I had the champagne and a club soda with lime.

After a short while, the appetizer tray was brought around. It included salmon, mushroom soup and salad. I like that Delta continues to serve soup with the appetizers as I enjoy soup on a plane. I also chose a pretzel roll from the bread options.

Everything was tasty and the salad was interesting with mixed greens, sundried tomatoes and parmesan rather than the bland lettuce leaves you tend to get with airline salads most of the time. The main course was next and it looked a bit too saucy.

It turned out to be fine as underneath the pork was polenta that soaked up a lot of the sauce. As usual on US airlines, the plating was less than appetizing but the dish was simple and tasty.

Finally, there was an ice cream sundae cart which was a good conclusion to the meal. I added biscoff cookies, hot fudge and whipped cream.

At this point, it was about 2 hours into the flight and my movie had finished. I reclined my seat a bit and watched a couple of episodes of Paradise before I tried to catch some sleep.

I made up the bed myself (as on American there was no help from the flight attendants) and rested for a while with the door closed. I wasn’t able to fall asleep as it was just too early with still being on NZ time.

After a couple of hours of tossing and turning, I walked up to grab a snack from the forward galley. Apologies for the dark picture. The Tim Tams were good.

I opened the window shades (not surprised Delta cheaped out and didn’t get the automated window shades that non-US airlines have) and saw a beautiful Pacific sunset.

I finally was able to fall asleep with about four hours left in the flight and slept until we had about one hour until landing. The Wi-Fi was working at this point as we had flown an interesting route toward Hawaii and then turned right toward California.

I wasn’t too late for breakfast and ordered a coffee along with the crepes. They came with fruit and a partially crushed croissant that was still tasty.

Before long, we were preparing for landing. We touched down at 5:32, about eight hours earlier than we took off thanks to the magic of the International Date Line. We had to be towed to a gate at the Bradley terminal so that took a few extra minutes, but we were still about five minutes early.

We deplaned through door two and headed for immigration which was thankfully nearby. We got through Global Entry in about 10 seconds and then waited quite a long time for our bags. Unfortunately, Delta’s 20 minute baggage guarantee does not work for international flights.

Our bags finally came out at 6:15 and thankfully, there were baggage carts available for free at LAX (Atlanta charges $7). We got through customs quickly and then followed the signs to baggage re-check. Thanks to the thoughtful check-in agent in Auckland, our bags were already tagged for Las Vegas so we literally just dropped them and kept going toward Terminal 2.

From our bags coming out to getting through security after the Delta One check-in and dedicated checkpoint, it took 15 minutes. My wife can’t walk that fast, so you could probably do it even quicker than that.

Overall, we enjoyed Delta One on the A350 and wouldn’t hesitate to fly it again. Unfortunately, the opportunities to book these seats using miles, whether using SkyMiles or partners like Flying Blue or Virgin, are few and far between.

Up Next: Delta One Lounge LAX Review

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