Recent LAX Visit and @Delta First Class Meal – Antipasto Salad

The Theme Building

While in LA for work recently, I caught a glimpse of a KLM Queen flying overhead as I returned my rental car. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen one of those!

Long Live the Queen!

I was pleasantly surprised with an upgrade on the way back to Raleigh. Initially rather worried with the weather hitting the South-East, I was notified of a potential delay and a quick call confirmed that a late flight in the morning had cascaded throughout the day. Thankfully, a very helpful representative got me rebooked on a flight routing through MSP (instead of ATL).

While waiting for boarding, I noticed that not only did I get my preference for a window-seat, I got upgraded! Score! Though not a particularly long flight, the crew was stellar (as always — you spoil me, Delta!). When it came to meal choices, I opted for the antipasto salad as I wasn’t too hungry. Not only was the salad excellent (with lightly oiled crostini), it came with tiramisu!

Antipasto Salad
Antipasto Salad
Tiramisu

Knocked it out of the park again, Delta!

“Do you belong in first class?”

Have you ever been asked that? I have.

With all the press about passengers being bumped out of First Class or just being questioned if they belong there, I thought I would share a couple of my experiences on the matter.

The earliest memory I have of this, in recent history, is a flight I took in 2012 to India (DTW-AMS-BOM) where a gentleman in Schiphol actually asked me to leave the business class boarding queue because he thought I didn’t belong there. The icing on the cake was the look on his face when I showed him my boarding pass, clearly identifying the seat and class.

More recently, I have been asked a couple of times if I was in the right line when flying from Atlanta to Raleigh-Durham. I responded in the affirmative each time and the subject was dropped, but there was always an incredulous look returned.

While I can understand the frustration of hunting after overhead bin space and the desire to want to be seated in a timely manner, civility won’t hurt anyone.

What about you – any similar experiences?