Delta Connection E175 (SkyWest) Trip Report
Flight Details
Departure Airport: Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK/KOAK)
Arrival Airport: Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC/KSLC)
Aircraft: Embraer E175LR (N264Sy)
Airline: SkyWest dba Delta Connection
Flight Number: DL3903/SKW3903
Flight Time: 1 hour, 18 minutes
Server: Quite expert
My trip today started at the slightly misleadingly named Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport in Oakland, California. OAK has been heavily branding itself as a San Francisco airport (much to SFO’s chagrin), and while it’s only about 10 miles away from Downtown San Francisco as the crow flies, it’s about an hour’s drive up and across the Bay Bridge. For most people going to the City of San Francisco, SFO is undoubtedly the more efficient option.
However, OAK is a very good choice if you’re headed elsewhere. For example, I was visiting family in Marin County. From there, SFO and OAK are almost equidistant. If given the option, OAK is a fantastic way to go. It’s a much smaller airport, but big enough. It serves as a hub for Southwest and sees service all across the Continental United States, Hawaii, El Salvador, and Mexico. They used to have an even more extensive network, going as far as Copenhagen, Stockholm, Paris, Rome, London, and Barcelona, but those routes have been recently dropped.
My flight was departing from Terminal One, which is basically everyone but Southwest. TSA was extremely quick here, and from curbside to airside was about three minutes flat. Post-security, it’s pretty standard airport fare. The recent construction has paid off, and the facilities are modern and clean. Nothing too fancy.
Delta serves Oakland with a thrice-daily flight to Salt Lake City, a route also served by Southwest. Currently, Salt Lake City is Delta’s only flight from Oakland. I hope in the future they explore further service from OAK. Seattle is the obvious choice given its location, but Minneapolis or Atlanta could be reasonable too.
My aircraft, 8-year old N264SY, arrived a couple of minutes behind schedule at Gate 15. The ground crew was fast in turning around our plane, and boarding commenced a mere fifteen minutes after they pulled onto the stand.
A few days in advance of my flight, I noticed an upgrade to Comfort+ was being offered for just $22. I figured “why not,” and moved up to 7D. The seat is well cushioned and comes with a nice 34 inches of legroom. There’s an adjustable headrest, and I quite like the way the blue and red stitching looks.
We pushed back four minutes early at 4:55 PM. Our taxi out to Runway 30 for departure was quick, as Gate 15 is about as close as you can possibly get to the runway. Oakland takeoffs are best seen from the right side of the aircraft. You fly north initially past Alameda, then make an eastbound bank which gives you simultaneous views of the Oakland Airport, the now-defunct Naval Air Station Alameda, the Bay Bridge, and Downtown Oakland.
Passing the outskirts of Sacramento, the flight attendants began their drink and snack run. Luckily, this flight is long enough to have a service. Delta’s new rules, which were instituted in response to turbulence-related injuries, now limit catering to flights 350+ miles. There was a choice of “premium” snacks offered to First Class, while Comfort+ and Economy received a selection of drinks and “regular” snacks which I believe were a granola bar, Biscoff cookies, Cheese-Its, and Sun Chips. I went with the only correct option and apple juice.
I got lucky with one of the E175s retrofitted with the free and fast WiFi. The rollout is nearly done across the Mainline fleet, and all E-jets should be done by the beginning of next year. It’s easy to set up - you just have to sign into your SkyMiles account. The WiFi works quite well, and I didn’t have any service disruptions as we changed altitudes or anything. As promised, it was active gate-to-gate. In terms of speed, it’s actually pretty fast. Websites took a second to load, but you could conceivably stream a video or browse social media without too much headache.
Soon enough, it was time to make our approach into Salt Lake City. This was my first time at SLC, and I now think it’s among the top-three most scenic airports in the United States that I’ve visited. The mountain views are pretty spectacular.
We parked at gate B29 a full 27 minutes early. Overall, I’d say that Delta does a really nice job on their Comfort+ product on the E175, but I wouldn’t spend a ton extra to fly it. The benefits of extra legroom and more padding are good, but you can definitely do without on the short sectors they fly, as the standard Economy product is solid enough too.
Flight Rating:
Crew: 10/10
Cleanliness: 9/10
Service: 10/10
WiFi: 8/10
IFE: N/A (it’s a regional jet, so no IFE is to be expected)
Landing: 7/10
