LaGuardia to Minneapolis | Delta 737-900ER

LaGuardia to Minneapolis | Delta 737-900ER Economy

Flight Details

Origin: New York City (LaGuardia)
Destination: Minneapolis/Saint Paul
Flight Number: DL1112
Scheduled Departure: 5:40 PM EDT
Actual Departure: 6:05 PM EDT
Scheduled Arrival: 8:09 PM CST
Actual Arrival: 7:50 PM CST
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Aircraft: Boeing 737-900ER (N878DN)
Flight Time: 2 hours, 27 minutes
Cruising Altitude: 34,000 feet, 32,000 feet, 28,000 feet
Server: Expert ig šŸ˜šŸ˜


Hello from New Yorkā€™s LaGuardia Airport! I had a lovely 4 hour layover on my way home from a great vacation on Marthaā€™s Vineyard. Iā€™ve been to New Yorkā€™s two other big airports - JFK and Newark, but this was my first time at LGA. I have to say, itā€™s a really impressive airport. Itā€™s clean, modern, and airy. The size is manageable, and navigation is easy enough. It reminds me a lot of MSP, actually, just smaller. Huge shoutout to @Delta174J for giving me a huge guide to connecting at LGA!


Our plane arrived right on time in from Palm Beach, Florida at Gate 86. LGA is a really great place to plane spot, with tons of huge windows looking out onto the airfield. As we were preparing to board, we got delayed by 25 minutes due to weather in Minneapolis.

25 minutes wasnā€™t a huge deal, and we were soon boarding. I was in seat 22A, right over the wing with a great view of the spoilers and flaps.

Because of some weird thing with check in, I was seated in a different row from the rest of my family, in the window next to a lovely man and his wife. The man, Tom, was a political analyst who works on contracts with a number of big media companies.

The seat was pretty comfortable, though you could tell it had seen better daysThe adjustable headrest that was advertised only moved on one side, and was suspiciously sticky (that was rectified with some Clorox wipes). There was an additional delay of a few minutes once we were on the plane because of a missing bag that was supposed to be checked but never ended up in the cargo hold, but we eventually pushed back and got our engines started for our taxi out to Runway 13 for departure.

LaGuardia is not known for its lengthy runways, and this was a completely full flight with extra fuel due to the weather. We went Flaps 25, which I never have seen on departure before. There was an issue with the tug about halfway through pushback, and we had to wait for a few minutes while they got us a different one.



With that situated, we taxied the length of the runway and lined up with the runway. The engines ramped up, and we rocketed out over Flushing Bay. It was perfectly smooth on the climb out, and we caught a good look at Manhattan as we looped around West.



As we made our way up to FL340, I started to explore the IFE. Thereā€™s a decent number of options in terms of movies and TV shows, as well as the basic map and flight information. A cool little thing I noticed was that on the map, the aircraft icon was Deltaā€™s 2024 Paris Olympics livery.They offered a whole range of Live TV channels, but only two (CNN and HGTV) seemed to work. Clicking on the others sent me back to the home screen. WiFi was offered, and worked OK. It was enough to use FlightRadar24, but that was about it. The flight attendants began their first service. I got a water and some almonds, as well as complimentary earbuds. They said snack boxes would be offered later, but nothing ever came of that and they just never showed up. The crew was very attentive and kept refilling waters throughout the flight.

The flight became kind of chaotic and people were talking quite loudly after the news broke that Trump had been shot at his rally. My seat mate was taking tons of hushed phone calls and frantically emailing. The whole ā€œvibeā€ of the flight shifted to a sort of uncertain buzz.



Over Michigan, we encountered the first batch of storms. The seatbelt sign was flipped on, but we only got some light chop for about 10-15 minutes. Despite the bumps, the flight attendants did a second drinks service (I just had some more water).



As we crossed Lake Michigan, things got a little worse. A powerful thunderstorm had passed through Minnesota that morning, and dumped inches of rain, massive hail, and brought high winds to the region. We deviated to avoid the worst of it, but still flew through the northern edge of the system. It started out with some light turbulence, and increased to pretty sustained moderate. The flight attendants all took their seats. After a good 5 minutes being tossed around, we dropped for a good 5 or 6 seconds. People were screaming and food went on the ceiling. My dadā€™s coffee spilled into the aisle. We ā€œbottomed outā€ hard and an overhead bin first class popped open. We quickly began descending to FL280.

The captain informed us that they were looking for some smoother air, and were hopeful that things would be better a little lower. Things pretty much smoothed out from there, and the flight attendants started making their way down the aisle checking on people. Luckily, everyone had been buckled in and there were no injuries, just some motion sickness.


We exited the storm and began our approach into Minneapolis. In very Minnesota fashion, the captain gave a very long apology as we made our way into the fray of the evening rush. The downwind leg was really long, going all the way up towards Maple Grove (far north side of the metro) before turning base. We got some great sunset views over the lakes and downtown before touching down on 12R.


Welcome to North Americaā€™s best large airport for the 7th year in a row! Feels nice to be home. We taxied past a huge row of widebodies here for the night, as well as an Air France 772 pushing out for Paris. Despite our delay in New York, we arrived at the gate ahead of schedule. There was initially some confusion when a team of paramedics boarded, but it was apparently for a separate medical issue unrelated to the turbulence.

We deplaned and headed to baggage claim, where it was discovered that they lost our suitcase. The Delta agent was very nice, and she confirmed what we suspected based off information from our Air Tag, that the suitcase was in Houston. They located it, and, as of writing, itā€™s on a flight from IAH.


The Flight: Reviewed

Seat: 7/10
Crew: 10/10
Food/Beverage: 7/10
In Flight Entertainment/Wi-Fi: 4/10
Landing: 8/10
Total: 36/50 (72%)


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16 Likes

Great trip report & photos!

Mildly terrifyingā€¦

Sounds lovely

I would say so. Iā€™m not usually freaked by turbulence, but that had me gripping my armrests real hard.

1 Like

I kind of expected a bigger drop than what we were getting, but nothing of that magnitude. The flight attendants had us clear our tray tables off, and my dad was holding his coffee and watching the news on his screen. I guess his grip was lighter than what it should have been, and the cup just came flying out of his hands and into the aisle. Luckily it was a cold brew, so even if it fell onto someone, no harm done.

Nice trip report @Mort. Apart from the turbulence it seemed to be a normal flight.

How on earth could that happen. Surely they tag your checked in suitcases with your destination right?

1 Like

What a crazy flight! I canā€™t believe you were in the sky during the trump thing. My friend was out on vacation to visit their family in Pennsylvania and they heard about it first obv, then told me. That trip report was in great level of detail, and I canā€™t believe all that occurred on the flight!

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Thanks, @AviatorVJ . Itā€™s baffling to everyone - my family and the Delta agent how it could have possibly been put on the wrong flight. They put tags on all the way to MSP at MVY, so thatā€™s not into question. She thought it was possible that the LGA-MSP tag was torn off at some point either en route from MVY-LGA or at LGA and they re tagged it accidentally. Could have been simple human error. Whatever the case, weā€™re getting it back today.


@Anthony_Gulluscio , you could definitely tell who had found out what happened and at what point during the flight. By the time we landed, basically everyone knew and was talking about it. As I deplaned, I could see that a good 3/4ths of the TV screens were on one new station or another. I actually found out because my dad (who was in the aisle seat one row ahead of me) was watching the news when the story broke. Not 45 seconds later, my seat mate (the political analyst) started swearing and frantically answering texts and emails.

My guess is that basically all the East Coast - MSP flights got pretty rocked on the way in. Medical emergencies arenā€™t that uncommon (about 1 in 600 flights, per the CDC) so itā€™s kinda just luck of the draw. The vibe I got from the paramedics was that it wasnā€™t a huge emergency, since they werenā€™t racing onboard or anything crazy.

4 Likes

Nice one @Mort! It was a pleasure to help you out with LGA, it was too bad I couldnā€™t see you at the airport considering I was in the neighborhood.

Sounds like a pretty eventful flight!

No problem at all! Anyone can DM if they want it :)

You shouldā€™ve seen it 5 years agoā€¦ but yes, it is!

Love that seat!

Welcome to NY lol

Love that departure

So interesting, wanna see this!

classic delta!

I was wondering how you knew Tom was a political analyst till I saw thisā€¦ ouch. Mustā€™ve been pretty crazy on board!

Love Delta for always doing that second service, other US carriers rarely do

6 seconds!? Thatā€™s like longer than being at the top of a roller coasterā€¦

I did that onceā€¦ but coke on a longhaul flight in the middle seat šŸ˜…

Thatā€™s good. Imagine if people werenā€™t buckled, if it could happen to the food it could happen to passengersā€¦ could even be in the newsā€¦

motion sicknessā€¦ I could imagine that šŸ˜…

Nice end to a eventful flightā€¦

CMON

Loved the report! Quite some drama and your writing really highlighted it!

2 Likes

Holy mother of quotes

3 Likes

iTā€™s BoEiNGā€™s fAulT

4 Likes

Media nowadays be likeā€¦

I have like two 2 bags of Nuts.com lol

1 Like

Wow amazing photos! In November I departed from gate 95 at LGA, right across the ramp in the first photo on a CRJ 900 flight from LGA-GRR. Iā€™m also from NYC so I know LGA and JFK very well, EWR not so much though lol

and I hope this never happens to me, but I did have to deal with a diversion in May as thunderstorms shut down MCO from arriving traffic.

1 Like

I knew when I was talking to him before we took off. He said he was traveling for work, and his wife was tagging along since they were going to tack a few extra days at the end on to go see his family in Wisconsin. I asked what he did, and he said he was a political analyst.

2 Likes

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