Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Ever since Delta announced their new Delta One Suites with lie flat seats and doors that open and close, I’ve been eager to give it a try. This month, I finally had a chance. My wife, son, and I flew Delta’s A350 from Detroit to Tokyo Narita and returned just over a week later. On the outbound, my wife and I were upgraded from Premium Select to Delta One Suites. On the return, we all flew Delta One Suites thanks to a low award price I had snagged 11 months earlier.
On our way to Japan, in-flight service was poor. On the return, the service was phenomenal, but the in-flight entertainment didn’t work. You never know what you’re going to get. So, for this review, I’ll focus instead on the hard product: the suites, the seats, and the cabin. And since I’ve flown Delta One (AKA business class) many times on older jets, I’ll compare the new suites to the old seats where appropriate.
Conclusion First
I don’t know about you, but when I read reviews I usually jump down to the final paragraph to read the author’s recap. So, let me do that for you now and I’ll skip the long review altogether.
The Delta One Suites are terrific. I loved the suite privacy, ample near-seat storage, wider seats (wider than Delta’s old Delta One seats, not necessarily wider than competition), enormous and bright video screen, and high ceiling. I also liked the fact that they provide every Delta One passenger two pillows (one large, one small), and a cushy blanket.
But they’re not perfect.
- The seats are hard. Delta should really provide pads for when the seats are laid flat. Yes, you can use the provided Westin bedding for this purpose, but then you may be cold without a blanket on top.
- The headphones aren’t very good. I found that they hurt my ears over time and would buzz if I used the A/C power plug at the same time (to charge my laptop, for example). Worse, when I tried to use my own headphones (without a two-prong adapter), I could only hear on one side. I recommend traveling with your own headphones, but make sure to bring an adapter for in-flight use. I had a cheap adapter with me, but I discovered it was broken.
- Window seats can feel a bit claustrophobic. This was a very minor issue for me, but could be big for others. I didn’t feel this way at all in a middle seat, but the window seat made me feel a little uncomfortable due to having walls close and all around, and a ceiling not too far away. The ceiling is much lower over the window seats due to the curvature of the plane plus the fact that there are luggage bins above the window seats, but not above the middle seats.
- Touch controls aren’t very responsive. This is a very minor issue, but it’s hard not to notice that you may have to tap the controls a number of times to get the lights to dim properly (for example).
- Some doors are hard to open. The doors to my suites were fine, but my son’s suite on the return flight proved to be very difficult to open. He was in a window seat where the seat is up against the window instead of the aisle. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the issue, but it is another reason to consider avoiding that particular configuration.
Bottom line
Despite a few quibbles, I’d happily fly Delta One Suites any time, and far prefer Delta One Suites over most other business class options. No, they’re not on par with the top first class products, but they’re competitive with the best business class products with the exception of Qatar’s Qsuites (which I haven’t yet flown).
Seat Recommendation
Many business class seat configurations (such as those found on Delta’s 767 aircraft) stagger the window seats such that on every other row the seat is either against the window with the side console between the seat and the aisle, or the console is against the window and the seat is closer to the aisle. This is true on Delta’s A350 as well. Usually I prefer the “true” window seats with the console between the seat and aisle because they offer more privacy. In this case, though, I’d argue that those seats may be the worst choice since they have less near seat storage and have other downsides of window seats on this aircraft (less privacy and lower ceiling). For the first time ever, I’d argue that middle seats are a better choice on the Delta One Suites (at least on the A350 — as they roll out this configuration on the 777s, I can’t promise the same result).
Premium Select
Wondering about Delta’s other premium cabin on the Airbus A350? See: Half an hour in Delta’s Premium Select. A mini review.
The rest of this post contains photos, videos, and captions…
Delta One Suite Cabin
Delta One Suite Seats
Suite Features
The door is the star of the show, so I made a little video to demonstrate.
I couldn’t find the reading light until a flight attendant showed me the trick…
Meals Detroit to Tokyo Narita
As an added bonus, here are photos of the food menus and my food. The food was good, but I don’t recommend picking a flight for its food quality. That will vary over time and by route.
Meals Tokyo Narita to Detroit
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
[…] Image of Delta One Suites on an A350 aircraft. Delta One Suites on other aircraft should be similar. You can find my review of this product here. […]
[…] Delta One suite review. Detroit to Tokyo Narita and back. […]
As long as anyone who’s walking down the aisle can see into your cubicle, what the value of having a door?
They would have to get close to the wall and peek over. When walking down the aisle you don’t automatically see people who have their doors closed and are lying down. At least that was my experience from barely 5’7″
If I pad $7000 to fly on a new plane with poor service, rock hard beds, doors that don’t open, cheap headphones with a buzz in them and a broken entertainment system, I would not be so generous with my review. I would rate that experience “unacceptable.”
I would never pay $7K for a flight, but I get your point. If I was reviewing the overall flight experience, I’d agree with you. Particularly on the outbound flight, they failed to meet expectations. My goal here, though, was to review the seat/suite in comparison to other business class seats. From that point of view, I stand by what I wrote: compared to most other business class products, the Delta One Suites are great.
Greg, great review! I flew DTW:AMS on the same aircraft and selected seat 3D, a “true window” seat after reading other bloggers reviews. Sitting in the seat I am in 100% agreement with your assessment that it’s probably the worst seat in the A350 DeltaOne cabin as it lacks any enclosed storage save the headphone alcove and magazine pocket and with the overhead bins lacks the open ceiling of the middle. Looking across the aisle the middle seats had much more storage and excellent privacy with the divider closed. Typically “true window” seats are superior given the separation from the aisle; however, the door provides more than enough privacy and acoustical separation that the 12″ or so of console space between you and the aisle isn’t necessary.
On the topic of the suite doors our cabin attendants were new to the aircraft and forgot to come around and unlock them after take-off or meal service leaving a lot of confused folks tugging on the doors after dinner. I would note that even when unlocked after pressing my FA call button, the doors were still difficult to close but easy to open.
With regard to the padding I completely agree. My solution was to tuck half of the blanket under me and use the other half to go over me which made it slightly more comfortable.
Thanks! It’s hard to believe that those true window seats don’t have any storage. That’s a huge negative. I wish I had thought to look at my son’s suite to see for myself.
I had an issue on the first flight with the FA not unlocking my suite, but on the return flight they made a point of unlocking them all while we were still on the ground. Seems that each crew has different procedures.
“he doors were still difficult to close but easy to open. ” Did you mean the other way around? I think the doors are always easy to close by pulling the little latch that closes them automatically. It is tugging them open that can be difficult on some suites. But, if you watch my video of the door you’ll see that my suite door was easy.
Greg – Difference of semantics. Closed for me means that they are deployed and filling the gap, like a door. Open means nested in their housing with the gap open to access the seat.
Yes, I think that’s how anyone would describe a door, including Greg above. The video shows the door closing quite easily
great review, thanks for posting. BTW how did you get upgraded from Premium Select to D1 suite? GUC, OP etc?
Ah yes, I should have posted that info. I applied global upgrade certs. They didn’t clear until after we boarded!
Can you only upgrade from Premium Select and not from Economy?
You can upgrade from regular economy. Premium Select actually cost me less than regular economy: https://frequentmiler.com/2018/01/22/international-premium-economy-less-coach/