Back in July I had to visit Boston for a short business trip. While there are several ways to get to Boston from New York, including driving or taking Amtrak, the truth is that I much prefer sitting in the airport terminal followed by a short flight, rather than a multi-hour slog in the train. As such I was able to fly Delta from New York-JFK to Boston Logan BOS in First Class, and I will review that experience in this post. To be clear: I upgraded myself as that’s not covered by my company.

Also, this is my first ever review of a US airline! Been in the USA for so long and have had this blog for over two years, and yet this is my first review of a flight in the premium cabin of a US airline.

Briefly, this was a pleasant experience. There is no doubt that first class is much more comfortable than Comfort+ or Main Cabin. With wider, more comfortable seats, friendly service and a larger array of drinks, this is a lovely way to get to Boston. But, on a flight this short, is it worth the cost? Read on to find out.

How I Booked This Flight

This was a business trip, pure and simple. Essentially, my company paid for the flight, but only in main cabin. Since I have Flying Blue Gold status, I’m able to get a complimentary space-available upgrade to Comfort+ closer to departure, or I can buy up ahead of time to either Comfort+ or First Class. And the latter is exactly what I did.

My company paid the $274.28 cost of the return trip in main cabin, with the following schedule:

• Delta DL5798 (operated by Republic Airways), departing New York-JFK on July 27th at 5:30pm and Arriving at Boston BOS at 7:00pm.
• Delta DL5849 (operated by Republic Airways), departing Boston BOS on July 28th at 8:00pm and arriving at New York LaGuardia LGA at 9:29pm.

For the flight to Boston, I then paid $64.50 out of my own pocket for a first class ‘upsell’, which is essentially paid upgrade. This cost was worth it to me to try first class, given that I had never tried it before. Plus, I hadn’t paid anything for the original return ticket anyway. Had I shelled out $274 myself, I may have not upgraded given that the cumulative cost of the ticket would have exceeded $300 for the return trip.

As such, in this review I will only describe the flight experience of my upsell to first class on the flight from New York-JFK to Boston BOS.

Checkin at New York-JFK Terminal 4

Delta operates out of Terminal 4 at New York-JFK. At the southern side of the terminal is the SkyPriority checkin section. This is a dedicated checkin area for those traveling in First Class (domestic) or Premium Select, those with Delta SkyMiles Gold status and up, or SkyTeam Elite Plus status. Note that those in Delta’s international or transcontinental Delta One business class can use the Delta One checkin and security lanes, which are adjacent to the SkyPriority lane.

I’ve come through here on various occasions thanks to either flying KLM’s premium economy, or thanks to my Flying Blue Gold status, which maps to Skyteam Elite Plus status and provides SkyPriority benefits. You’ll find manned counters on the left for customer service or bag drop, and electronic kiosks on the right.

I find the main benefit of using the SkyPriority section of the terminal that it’s simply much quieter, so it’s a lot quicker to get access to a kiosk or speak with an agent, if necessary.

Following checkin, you’ll find that there are various priority security lanes. One is for TSA PreCheck (read my guide here), but there’s also a separate SkyPriority security lane. Unfortunately this doesn’t give TSA PreCheck privileges. Even so, I find myself increasingly using the SkyPriority lane because the line is often way shorter than the TSA PreCheck lane.

Boarding Experience

My flight was departing from Gate A10, which is at the furthest end of the A concourse. This is a gate area that is dedicated to Delta’s smallest plane types, such as the E175 and CRJ700/900, though I’ve occasionally seen an A320 here as well. It mostly caters to flights of up to 1.5-2 hours in length, to destinations such as Boston, Detroit or Washington.

Unfortunately, JFK was experiencing a ground stop for some time due to air traffic control staffing issues. These were alleviated only around 4:30pm or so, which meant that the inbound flight from Nantucket experienced delays. As such, departure of my flight was delayed to 6:18pm.

Boarding ultimately started at 5pm, about 1 hour later than initially scheduled. First those passengers needing extra time down the jet bridge were called forward, and soon after those in group 1, which includes first class. I was the first one through the door and down the jet bridge, and soon found myself in the first class cabin of the E175.

Delta E175 First Class Cabin and Seat

The Embraer E175 is of course a small plane meant for regional flights, so the cabin feels small and relatively tight throughout the plane, regardless what cabin you’re in. The cabin also looked a rather dreary, but that’s almost entirely because all the window shades were down. I will never understand why US airlines like to have them down (especially for a day flight), as I find it makes the cabin look really uninviting.

The first class cabin on this E175 had 12 seats in 4 rows in a 1-2 configuration, and feels roomier compared to the rest of the cabin thanks to the 1-2 configuration and the larger seats. They have a 37″ row pitch, 20″ seat width and 5″ seat recline.

I had assigned myself seat 1A, the bulkhead seat on the left side of the plane, which is the side of the seat with a single seat per row. If you’re traveling with somebody, you might want to pick your seats on the right side of the plane, so you can sit together.

The seats looked comfortable and I like the upholstering, with the textured pattern that represents a stylized version of Delta’s ‘widget’. Otherwise, these are pretty standard seats on E175 first class, and you’ll notice that all airlines have more or less the same seats across the E175 fleets in the US.

As for your bags, the overhead bin on the left side of the plane is rather shallow, because there’s only a single seat there. There’s enough space in there for a backpack. Meanwhile, the overhead bin on the other side, above the double seats, is extra deep, with more than enough space for your carryon.

At the bulkhead you’d have improved pitch and legroom, since there’s no other seat in front. However, perhaps unintuitively, fully stretching your legs is actually easier in rows 2-4 because you can stretch them under the seat in front, whereas at the bulkhead the wall makes that a bit harder. Since there is no seat in front, there is a literature pocket on the wall in front, which otherwise hold the usual safety card, sick bag and such.

The armrest on my right could be flipped open to reveal the folded tray table. This can be pulled out to initially reveal half a tray table, and then be folded open to span the full width of the seat. Fully opened, the tray table rests on the left arm rest for stability.

The left armrest had nothing much about it, except that at the front a tiny tray could be slide out to hold cups. This is a sensible addition, so you can have a drink without needing to open the tray table. At the front of the arm rest you will also find a universal power plug, which was powered throughout the flight.

The overhead included reading lights and air vents, as is standard on the Embraer E175.

Overall, this is a standard E175 first class cabin on a US airline. Given the small size of the plane, there is only so much space allotted to each passenger, but that said the seats are definitely more spacious and roomy than any of the main cabin seats. I also like the 1-2 layout, so you can choose whether you want to have a neighbor or not.

Departure from New York-JFK

After I got settled, the flight attendant approached me (and anybody else who was already seated) for the pre-departure service, and asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I asked for a glass of white wine. She returned promptly and presented me the wine in a paper cup, but on a little tray rather than handing it to me directly, which I thought was a nice touch. Note that every time she went through the aisle to provide service or drinks, she briefly stopped the flow of boarding passengers to enable the service.

I was sipping the wine, which wasn’t half bad, as boarding continued. By 6:25 boarding had completed, the doors were closed and the captain came on the PA to welcome us onto the plane. He announced it’d be a 35-minute flight and we’d be pushing back shortly. Out my window I could see the jetway being retracted.

Shortly after, the flight attendant came by to collect the trash of the pre-departure service and by 6:35 the safety briefing was shown (manually). Push back only came at 6:45pm.

Another first class passenger started talking on the phone on speaker, but was promptly approached by the flight attendant. Kudos to her for being friendly yet firm in telling him we’d be starting to taxi so he’d need to finish his call – which he promptly did.

At 6:50pm we were pushed back, the engines were started and we were on our way. Our taxi was an ordinary JFK taxi, leading us to runway 4R. It was getting busy out there, with a deluge of widebodies embarking on their transatlantic trips.

It took a bit of time to get to the runway but we finally lined up at 7:17pm and blasted into the sky soon after, bidding the Long Island coastline farewell.

Inflight Service

Service started 5 minutes after takeoff, at 7:24pm. The friendly flight attendant working first class first came by to get drink orders. She was pleasant: despite how short the flight was, she was very relaxed and not rushing anybody. I inquired for any juices or soft drinks and she recommended Fresca, a kind of citrus-flavored soda. Immediately after she brought out a tray with a variety of snacks, and I chose a bag of chips, to keep us busy while she was working on the drinks.

The drink came a little later in an actual glass rather than the paper cup of the pre-departure service, so that was nice. She then came by a second time with the snacks, and I took the Milano cookies. I ended up with a nice bounty on my small tray table:

Funnily enough, the seatbelt sign turned off at 7:34, and shortly after the captain came on the PA to welcome everybody again, and simultaneously say we were cruising at a mere 9000ft and we’d be descending soon for our approach and landing at Boston Logan (BOS), to be on the ground in about 20 minutes. Talk about a short flight!

Entertainment and WiFi

I did find a moment to try out the WiFi, which was available for free. Delta makes a big deal of providing WiFi throughout their fleet, but in reality the free WiFi here is just for messaging.

Getting onto the WiFi is easy. select the DeltaWiFi.com network, and once connected a portal should open, prompting you to hit continue. Once you do that, your web browser will open, showing you basic flight information, as well as ways to connect to the internet.

There are three ‘tiers’ of internet connection, which are as follows:

• Messaging: Free
• Browsing:
  • 30 minutes is $4.95
  • Entire flight: $9.95
• Subscription:
  • Domestic: $49.95
  • Global: $69.95

As you can see, messaging is free, or you can buy a browsing pass for 30 minutes or the entire flight. Given how short the flight is, $10 doesn’t seem like a particularly useful way to spend that money, so if you’re a prolific Delta flyer and would like to have internet, you may as well buy the WiFi pass. As for me, I stuck with the messaging pass, which worked fine.

Embraer E175 Lavatories

The Embraer E175 has several lavatories, with first class having a dedicated one at the front, by the cockpit. I say dedicated, but actually it would also be used by the forward galley flight attendant and the pilots, so it’s not quite so dedicated to the first class passengers.

The lavatory itself really isn’t much to write home about. It’s incredibly tight, with the bend in the fuselage prominently in the way. With some turbulence you’d likely hit your head. At least it was fairly clean. Otherwise, the tiny sink does feature some nice Grown Alchemist hand soap beside it, which smells great and is the same product Delta has at its Sky Clubs.

Overall, it’s probably one of the smallest lavatories you’ll encounter on a commercial plane, but that’s standard for the forward lavatories on the E175. The Grown Alchemist hand soap is a nice touch.

Arrival into Boston Logan BOS

By 7:42pm the flight attendant cleared everything and a few minutes later the captain asked to have the cabin made ready for arrival, and soon we were starting the descent. Meanwhile we were treated to some beautiful evening colors. Seeing this from a plane’s window never gets old!

We were descending as we were coming into Boston Logan. The flight attendant made a final pass through the cabin to collect any trash and by 7:52 the cabin was ready. Which was a good thing because the skyline of Boston was getting into view.

We were approaching Boston from the south, for a landing on runway 4R. I love this approach into BOS because it brings you low and slow over the eastern part of the harbor, with a fantastic view over downtown Boston’s skyline. With a sun setting behind the city, the views were spectacular.

We touched down a little hard and fast on runway 4R at 8pm, about an hour behind schedule. As we were taxiing to the gate I was able to snap a nice photo of a British Airways 777 taxiing out for takeoff.

5 minutes later we pulled into gate A2, by another E175, bringing this short flight to an end. Delta operates out of Terminal A at Boston, which consists of a main part and a satellite. Gate A2, fortunately, is at the main building, so it’s a quick walk out into the joint departure hall and checkin area, so I was on my way to my hotel soon enough.

Was this Worth the Upgrade?

There is no doubt that Delta’s first class seat and service make the flight to Boston a much more comfortable and pleasant experience compared to even Comfort+. The wider seat gives you more space, and the service is a big differentiator as well: after all, there is basically no service in either Comfort+ or Main Cabin on Delta flights this short. And don’t forget the Sky Priority services that make the ground experience a bit better as well.

The question is, does it matter? After all, JFK-BOS is little more than a hop, and while it would usually last 45 minutes or so, this flight was particularly short, at only 35 minutes.

Despite the obvious increase in comfort I find it hard to recommend spending extra money for a first class seat, because you won’t be enjoying it for very long anyway. That said, if the price is right, I’d say why not. $40 is probably a reasonable price if you value the comfort.

Summary

This was a very pleasant and comfortable hop to Boston, and I’m glad to have finally experienced first class on a US airline, even if it was on one of the shortest possible flights. The wider seat was comfortable, and the service was both professional and friendly. While it’s nothing more than a drink and some snacks, keep in mind that Delta doesn’t provide more than a small of bottle of water in any of the other classes of service, so in comparison the first class service is an upgrade.

That said, the flight is so short that you’d probably be better off saving your money for something else, unless the additional space and Sky Priority is of real importance to you. If you do want to go for the upgrade, I’d say that $40 may be a worthwhile price.