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.
