Spring break in Hawaiʻi. It sounded glorious, but then again, most of our spring break trips do until we inevitably have to cancel them for one reason or another. I don’t know why, but this time of year seems to be really challenging, though this year spring break was later than usual. And this time, the trip actually happened. I am giving myself a gold star for that.
I knew we had some expiring Delta credits, but that was really our only constraint. After searching everywhere from New York to Hawaiʻi and everything in between, we settled on Delta going to Honolulu and then Hawaiian to Līhuʻe and back home from there. Today, let’s talk about the trip out.
Delta had one ways from Los Angeles to Honolulu for $280.70 each, less after burning through our credits. Naturally, we wanted to take the morning flight and that meant we’d be on a B767-300ER. I had mixed emotions on this. Of course I love the 2-3-2 configuration which meant we’d have two sets of window/aisles. But these are older airplanes that aren’t the most reliable. But hey, we had no real plans that day, so I just hoped we’d be close to on time.
I had been tracking the airplane — a sprightly 1998 build — and it was doing a turn to Tahiti, a route which has now been canceled, before picking us up. I knew the day before that we were going to be in trouble when it got a late start. I assume it’s an ETOPS restriction, but this flight went well west, adding probably an hour to the trip. That meant it wasn’t going to make up any time enroute. When the return got in the air, that’s when I saw that we had posted a half hour delay. I had a hard time believing it would be that short.
Parking was surprisingly inexpensive this time, so we opted to drive instead of rideshare to LAX. Since our plane was flying from Tahiti, we were at a gate at the Bradley terminal. The parking shuttle dropped us off somewhere between T3 and Bradley which was not convenient for anyone.
After a short walk, we were in that big ticketing area that started many of my fondest memories as a child.
Bradley was moderately busy for an early morning, but the TSA Precheck line was empty. On the other side, the kids grabbed some food, and then we wandered over to our gate. This gate was a mess. People were standing around waiting for more info, which I didn’t quite understand since there was a big, empty seating area right next to the gate.
It didn’t take long for me to realize you can’t hear any of the announcements from those seats, and that had to be why almost nobody was using them. We took a seat, realizing boarding wouldn’t begin for a while. My wife tried to charge her phone, but the outlets didn’t work. I decided to just lounge around and snapped this photo which should be the cover for AvGeek Monthly magazine, if that was a real thing.
Eventually, I got up to mill around. I asked a redcoat if he had any idea how long before we were boarding. He said in a distracted and slightly annoyed tone, “as long as it takes,” meaning that they had to do cleaning and a security sweep since the airplane was flying in from elsewhere.
The original posted delay time came and went, and then our departure started getting pushed further. We started boarding a little after 9, and to their credit, passengers got onboard quickly.
Delta 480
April 11, 2025
From Los Angeles
➤ Scheduled Departure: 835a
➤ Actual Departure: 940a
➤ From Gate: 133
➤ Wheels Up: 953a
➤ From Runway: 24L
To Honolulu
➤ Wheels Down: 1200p
➤ On Runway: 8L
➤ Scheduled Arrival: 1133a
➤ Actual Arrival: 1204p
➤ At Gate: E4
Aircraft
➤ Type: Boeing 767-332ER
➤ Delivered: April 10, 1998
➤ Registered: N1200K, msn 28457
➤ Livery: Standard Delta Colors
Flight
➤ Cabin: Coach in Seat 42F
➤ Load: ~99% Full
➤ Flight Time: 5h7m
Once onboard, I noticed two things. First, the interior didn’t look too beat up at all. I was pleasantly surprised. Second, it was absolutely frozen onboard. At least they had blankets at each seat.
We pushed back a little more than an hour late which was better than I expected. It was a short taxi, and we were soon in the air heading west. We kept climbing out over the Channel Islands before land disappeared from sight.
The flight attendants came through with a pass for drinks and snacks. My son took all the Biscoff he could get, including mine. They also came through with food for purchase, but I passed on that.
We hit some chop on and off, but the pilots would put the seatbelt sign on and then just leave it forever. I know I sound like a broken record, but I really hate that. The best thing they can do for safety is have it lit only when it’s a real concern. Otherwise people ignore it.
I watched a couple of good movies, starting with In Bruges since I’d never seen it and we had visited Bruges last summer.
The flight attendants came through with another service. I hoped for a mai tai, but they don’t stock those. The flight attendant just said “don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of those when you land.” Right, but that’s not the point.
My favorite form in the whole world was delivered during my second movie. It was picked up shortly after. Then I decided to try wifi. I know that Delta didn’t have satellite coverage here until recently, so I was particularly curious to see how it worked even if I didn’t need it. My phone wouldn’t work at all, and neither would my wife’s. It just kept giving a connection error. But the computer worked, and it was pretty fast at 14 Mbps down. (My view of “fast” would change dramatically after my return trip with Starlink.)
I finally couldn’t hold it any longer and got up to go to the lav. The sign turned off right as I stood up. Go figure. Delta has made the lavs really nice on these old airplanes. It’s definitely a different feel than, say, if you’ve been in the lav on a renovated United 757.
We began our descent into the islands from the northeast, and there were plenty of clouds around on the windward side of Oʻahu, so we didn’t get much of a view at all as we cut across the island. We stayed in and out of clouds until we were below 3,000 feet, and we landed in a light rain.
Taxi-in was short, and then it took a long time to get off the airplane. As on departure, they were using door 1L, so we had a long way to go to get out. Once we did, we were off for three days at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki in a newly-renovated junior suite.
After the hustle and bustle of Waikiki, we were ready to slow things down, and so it was time to fly to Kauaʻi. I’ll cover that in a future post.
32 comments on “A Not-So-Ancient Delta 767 Gets Us to Honolulu With a Little Delay (Trip Report)”
What a great trip report. Thank you for sharing, Cranky.
I’m with you on generally avoiding the 767-300ER. At this point, these planes are very old, and can often end up being the root cause of long delays at both Delta and United due to mechanical issues. A 1998-build 767-300ER feels younger than some of the early 90s builds that both carriers fly. Even though both airlines spent a lot of time and money overhauling them, I don’t want to fly on them, and the 767-400ER fleets too are getting old.
Does DL still use older 757s/767s for many of its services to the more distant parts of South America (EZE, SCL, southern Brasil, etc)? Those planes felt like they were getting a bit long in the tooth when I flew them a few times 16+ years ago, so I can only imagine how they are now, even if they’ve had some interior refreshes.
They were as of only a few years ago (which, agreed, was kind of shocking); however, SCL has gotten the ex-LATAM 359s, and EZE just announced it would be upgraded to 339s https://news.delta.com/delta-introduces-next-generation-airbus-a330-900neo-flights-between-us-and-argentina
I think this is just a natural part of fleet evolution – those 767s now focus on secondary EU and LH domestic as more and more next-gen WB take over the “sexier” routes. The LATAM JV probably helps too in capturing more premium pax and therefore, needing a more premium product; whereas DL was probably just a spill carrier in South America pre-JV
Interesting, thanks for the info.
I always thought/assumed that the older planes were used on the deep South America routes because (given the relatively similar time zones, combined with flight lengths and consumer preferences on flight times) planes often wind up remaining on ground in South America for extended times between flights on those routes, so it made sense to use older (presumably more fully depreciated, and with higher running costs) planes for those lower utilization routes.
Kilroy – This summer, here’s what Cirium data says. Other than a daily Mexico City flight from both JFK and LAX as well as a weekly flight from JFK to St Maarten and from LAX to San Jose (CR), the 757 is Atlanta focused for international flying. It has Bogota, Cancun, Guatemala City, Mexico City, Los Cabos, San Jose (CR), St Maarten, Quito, and St Lucia on the docket. Oh wait, I forgot the 752 config which does Keflavik from both Detroit and Minneapolis. Interestingly, these are not flat bed airplanes with the exception of 1 weekly JFK – Mexico City. The flat beds are otherwise mostly on transcon/domestic flying.
The 767-300ERs are almost all Transatlantic internationally, doing: *Atlanta – Barcelona, Brussels, Edinburgh, Venice, Zurich *Boston – Dublin, Edinburgh *JFK – Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Catania, Dakar, Dublin, Edinburgh, Geneva, Keflavik, London/Gatwick, Naples, Prague, Shannon, Stockholm
The only two international routes that buck the trend? There’s 4x weekly Atlanta – Rio as well as daily Honolulu – Haneda (which is fed by that LAX – Honolulu flight I took).
The 767-400ER is only over the Atlantic internationally: *Atlanta – London/Heathrow, Munich, Nice, Paris/CDG, Venice *Detroit – Munich
Thanks, Cranky. Appreciate the info!
Maybe they keep the seatbelt sign on for liability reasons.
It just encourages people to not respect it if it’s on for the entire flight. If it’s on, frequent flyer (me) won’t get up unless it’s an emergency. My wife is more of the “it’s been on for an hour, there hasn’t been a single bump and I have to pee” mentality. If it was used more judiciously, it would be respected much more. As it is now, the px has to determine whether it’s a “real” fasten seat belts situation or merely a suggestion. Which seems very inane.
I agree completely. When you gotta go, you gotta go. If you have been waiting and waiting for that wretched sign to go off and it doesn’t, then you violate the rules. Did the pilots simply forget to turn off the sign?
David – That would seem to have the opposite effect. As Bill notes, if you leave the sign on the whole time, then people will get up when it’s on because they have no other choice. But if they use it properly, then people would actually obey it more.
It’s always a pleasure to fly on non US carriers. They generally turn the seatbelt sign off on climb out, around 15k feet.
I’ve been on transpacific flights on Asian carriers out of LAX where the seatbelt sign seemed to go off at about the coastline. Which as CF can attest, is not very far at all, certainly not 15k feet. Quite a change from being used to US airlines which generally wait until they level off at their initial cruising altitude to turn off the seatbelt sign.
Exactly when was this trip taken? I ask because those agricultural forms have been replaced with online forms. At least they had been by the time we departed for Hawaii in mid-March of this year.
Controller1 – Says in the trip report, this was April 11. Maybe some airlines switched before others?
I filled it out on my SEA-HNL flight on March 30th.
Nice trip report. Dumb question… since this was a westbound flight, why was the flight #480 & not 481? Sometimes you see that & I’m a little curious why that occurs as it breaks normal convention.
SEAN – I think those conventions were thrown out as flight numbers became scarce. It’s just a jumble now.
Thanks, Cranky!
I’ve never understood why airlines don’t lean in to advertising 2-3-2 (or 2-4-2) configurations. On a long haul trip its a massive differentiator that I base my purchasing decisions on when flying with my spouse as a couple (and our 2 kids as a quad). I’ll still go far out of my way to fly 767s and 330s when flying with the family.
Relatedly, I love that the A220s have brought back the 2-3 configuration so it works for any permutation of family to have a row(s) to themselves. The real dream would be for some of these 9 across widebodies to go 2-4-3 on their leisure routes… I suspect if an airline was brave enough to lean into the differentiation as a selling point, it would make up for the loss on the standardization side.
Some ANA 777s have this layout
https://www.aerolopa.com/nh-773-2
Oh interesting – thanks for sharing. I’m surprised they have it on a premium heavy configuration… I’d think leisure is where this really might work. Norse seems like an ideal guinea pig for it.
The other aspects of it aren’t big selling points for me, but as a solo flyer I’m a fan of the A220 simply because the 2-3 seating configuration in coach means fewer middle seats. As a bonus, that seating configuration (even on 220s operated by other airlines) brings up fond memories of past flights on shiny AA Mad Dogs.
Glad to see the A220 carry on the 2-3 mantle before the 717s eventually get retired.
This, 100%. 2-3-2 or 2-4-2 is so nice for a family of four. All these 3 seat configs suck. I was sad to see the A350s are 3-3-3 now instead of 2-4-2. We flew one of LH’s 350s, what a magnificent airplane, comfort wise, MUC-ORD. I’ve not felt the same on any of the 787s I’ve been on.
In Bruges is a quality film. Ralph Fiennes saying the c-word is almost as joyous as watching Ben Kinsgley do so in Sexy Beast.
Always find US carriers to be trigger-happy with the seatbelt sign (not that it really bothers me) – in contrast, some European carriers seem positively negligent on their flights.
Sir Ben Kingsley saying “fuuuuuuuudge” (but he didn’t say fudge) in the Sopranos was another excellent moment of dignified actors cursing in movies.
A redcoat replying to a reasonable question with the annoyed, why are you even bothering me response of “as long as it takes” should be censured if not terminated.
They aren’t gate agents with a million other things to do, their sole purpose is to be a customer service liaison. He has one job and failed miserably at it.
Bill – He was on the computer doing something, to be fair. But I was still surprised.
It’s why US carriers could never compete with foreign airlines on level of service.
A couple of quick thoughts.
I’m beginning to wonder how many younger people even know what a “record” was (or is). With so much content on streaming platforms nowadays, it’s getting harder to find new CDs, DVDs and other physical media anymore, although vinyl records are making a bit of a comeback.
I’m guessing that you’re aware that Costco carries Biscoff cookies. But one advantage of collecting them on flights is that they’re free.
I’m glad you had some time to get away with your family,
Ghost – Oh yes, we are well aware of the Biscoff options, but my son swears that the ones on Delta are better. Must be the name printed on them that tastes so good. I think it’s just become a running joke now.
CF – Maybe he’s right. LOL
Even Walmart stores near me carry big packs of Biscoff cookies (plus Biscoff spread and a few other related products). To your point, however, those aren’t free, and don’t feel as special. :-)