Since 2006, Delta Air Lines has served the main capital of South Africa, Johannesburg, with a non-stop flight from Atlanta. Initially served by the Boeing 777-200LR, the early retirement of DL’s 777 fleet and consolidation around the A350 and A330 during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 saw the A350, a type originally purchased to replaced the Boeing 747-400s inherited from Northwest Airlines, deployed on that route. With flight times well over 16 hours westbound, coupled with Johannesburg having a field elevation of over a mile above sea level, the return flight with the A350 occasionally has to stop in Cape Town, certainly making this a unique route.
Server: Solo
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Aircraft: Airbus A350-900
Origin: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia (ATL)
Destination: O.R. Tambo International Airport, Kempton Park, South Africa (JNB)
Flight Number: DL200
Route: KATL-FAOR
Seat: 6A (Delta One)
Time En Route: 15 Hours 38 Minutes
Trent 1000 XWBs making the characteristic Rolls-Royce buzzsaw sound on takeoff. Only other engines that do this are the Pratt and Whitney PW2000 and PW4000. General Electric ones, in my experience, have a much lower, but no less loud roar that you feel more than hear.
Which shouldn’t have happened in my opinion. It’s odd seeing the USA’s best airline using non Boeing which is American for a majority of their flights. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a flagship plane made on the same soil and same country that the airline is from? Wonderful pictures and awesome but very long route you did there. It seems like it would be a good overnight flight with ample time to sleep in.
Really nice flight, I’ve done it before but instead I flew from Johannesburg to Atlanta, really cool flight in my opinion
Haha, I don’t blame you calling Johannesburg a capital city, it’s actually really close to one of them Pretoria. However the capitals are Cape Town, Pretoria and Bloemfontein, but yet again I don’t blame you since Johannesburg is popular and huge.
Delta didn’t operate that many 777s to begin with, having only 8 of the -200ER and 10 of the -200LR. Furthermore, the -200ERs are getting long in the tooth, so they’d be up for retirement anyway, while the -200LRs would probably be hanging around until at least 2026, when Delta is scheduled to take delivery of its first A350-1000.
Historically, Delta’s long-haul fleet has largely been centered around the transatlantic market, which doesn’t require aircraft with quite the range of the 777 (compare the number of 767s and the A330s inherited from Northwest to their 777s). Thus, when Delta was looking to make some cuts to the widebody fleet, it made sense to offload the fewst, most specialized aircraft (Delta may only have 11 A330-200s, but that’s alongside 31 A330-300s, along with a number of A330-900neos for at least 43 a
A330s, coupled with 43 767-300ERs and 21 767-400ERs). In short, as soon as the countries Delta flew the 777s to locked down, the writing was on the wall for them.
