Delta A321NEO - Seattle to Lihu'e

June 17, 2024
Flight 344
Taken from Seat 5A
Scheduled Departure Time: 3:55 p.m.
Actual Departure Time: 8:50 p.m.
Scheduled Arrival Time: 7:05 p.m.
Actual Arrival Time: 11:32 p.m.
Flight Time: 5 hrs 42 mins
Aircraft: N525DA

00:00 - Intro
00:09 - Pushback/Egine Start
08:36 - Taxi
13:55 - Takeoff
45:00 - Descent/Approach
48:55 - Landing
50:22 - Taxi to Gate

This was my first flight on the A321NEO so I was pretty excited. We arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport around noon for our 4 p.m. flight just to be on the safe side and to have time to wander the terminal and relax in the Sky Club.

We boarded on time and everything seemed to be going smoothly. That was until the Captain came on and said there would be a slight delay for maintenance to change a tire, but we could remain onboard or deplane. Since it wouldn't be a long delay, I stayed onboard. About 20 minutes later, he announced that the part wasn't in Seattle and they would need to fly in the part from LAX and the aircraft was scheduled to land at 7:30 p.m. so everyone needed to deplane given the 3.5 hour delay.

We went back to the Sky Club to eat and got our son to sleep for about an hour. While we waited, I realized that instead of waiting for the part from LAX, Delta had just swapped our aircraft to one coming in from Boston (which was also delayed) and our new boarding time would be around 8:20 p.m. We headed to the gate a few minutes before boarding only to be told the cleaning staff was still onboard and catering hadn't arrived yet and there would be a slight delay because there was an accident onboard that the cleaning crew needed to clean up before we were let on the plane.

Finally, we boarded...again. Our 3.5 year old son was seated next to me while my husband sat in the window in front of us. The woman seated in front of our son boarded and immediately came to our row and was adamant that she sit next to me and our son should move to the seat in front of her. During the flight, she slept leaning forward against the back of the seat in front of her and was constantly annoyed that she had to move out of her seat to let me out. If you don't want to be inconvenienced by having to let window seat passengers out, don't book an aisle seat!

After being at the airport for almost 9 hours, we were glad to be on our way. The climb was beautiful once we got above the clouds. Service was good and the food was tasty. I had the chicken curry. On the first aircraft, there was a choice of 3 meals. However, after boarding the second aircraft, the charcuterie & cheese option disappeared so I'm not sure what happened to them during the delay.

All in all, the flight was good but given the delay and having spent 9 hours in the aircraft, I was glad to just get off the plane.