Been a couple months since I’ve done a flight with the A330-300 and even longer since I’ve been to Lima. Delta currently runs most of its South American flights from its home base in Atlanta, primarily using the A330 and 767, with the A350s being used to São Paulo and Santiago de Chile. One of the numerous A330 routes is the one to the Peruvian capital of Lima, which gets the A330-300 once a day, seven days a week.
Server: Solo
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
Origin: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia (ATL)
Destination: Jorge Chávez International Airport, Callao, Peru (LIM)
Flight Number: DL151
Route: KATL-SPJC
Seat: 22J (Delta Premium Select)
Time En Route: 6 Hours 37 Minutes
Ready to board on a sunny Atlanta afternoon for our trip down to Peru. Our aircraft is a 10.8-year-old A330-300, specifically a -300HGW that’s spent her entire career with Delta, being 1 of the 10 A330-300HGWs ordered by the airline after the Northwest merger. These aircraft have a strengthened wing and fuselage structure for a range of up to 5,940 nautical miles, enabling non-stop flights from the U.S. West Coast to Europe without payload restrictions or in Delta’s case, flights to Europe from Salt Lake City without payload restrictions on hot summer days.
Pushing back from Gate E12 as another DL A330-300 pulls in next to us as DL177 from Dublin. We’re seated in the rearmost row of Delta Premium Select, Delta’s long-haul premium economy product, and we’re hoping to see if it stacks up well compared to our previous experience in Premium Select on an A330 (Boston-Amsterdam). The flight crew has started up the port engine, and the classic CF6 rumble is starting to fill the cabin.
Turning onto the taxiway to join the line of company traffic. Captain says we should be enjoying a mostly clear, turbulence-free ride to Lima.
Roaring airborne from Runway 27R with terminal after terminal of Delta jets below us. Corporate headquarters is across the field on the north side, along with the Delta Flight Museum and its centerpiece, 747-400 N661US, front and center. We’d recognize that massive vertical stabilizer anywhere.
Climbing over the suburbs south of Atlanta. We’re well pleased with our seat, which is the window seat in a 2-seat row. While it’s not Delta One, the seats have 38 inches of legroom compared to economy’s 32, and the width is a full half inch greater, at 18.5 inches. Additionally, the seats are noticeably more well-padded, making for perhaps the most comfortable premium economy seating of any U.S. carrier, certainly from among the Big 3 of Delta, United, and American. As an added bonus, the seats come with a footrest, which will certainly help alleviate strain on longer flights.
Cruising at 35,000 feet over the Carribean. Service so far has been good, with the cabin crew being friendly and swift at getting us our drinks that we ordered, plus a light snack. We’re presently mulling over what to get for dinner, leaning towards the José Andrés’ Chicken Catalan, though we’re not quite counting out the basil and ricotta cappelletti.
Descending along the coast of Peru. Dinner earlier was served as we passed over Panama. We ended up going with the Chicken Catalan. The food itself was good, but Delta has noticeably cut back on its presentation post-Pandemic, doing away with the reuseable plates outside of Delta One. Still, though, it could have been worse, as the quality of food itself could have declined in an effort to make ends meet.
Nighttime arrival in Lima. Our flight crew landed in excellent fashion, touching down seemingly no faster than a Cessna 172, and with less bouncing too!
Leaving the runway as we head to the main terminal
Deplaned at Gate 21 at Jorge Chávez International. Our flight here was pretty good for the most part, save for the person ahead of us reclining their seat back farther than we’d like for most of the second half of the flight and the presentation of the meal being not too dissimilar from standard economy. However, it still is very much a good choice when traveling with Delta, especially for price-conscious travelers who don’t want to spring for Delta One.