Flying Delta on the A350 from Atlanta to Johannesburg.
Time to visit my mother so I booked a flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg using Delta miles. We had acquired a Delta American Express card when it was time to buy some furniture last year and now it was time to use the bonus miles. I spent a total of 80,000 miles for a ticket from Dallas to Atlanta and then on to Johannesburg.
The A350 is a great plane to fly in, it was still quite modern and the facilities were all in nice shape.
https://www.delta.com/us/en/aircraft/airbus/a350
The aircraft seats 306 people in total, 32 First Class (Delta One), 48 in Business (Delta Premium Select), 36 in Premium Economy (Delta Comfort) and 190 in Economy (Delta Main).
This was me sitting at the back of the plane. I always sit at the window, even though I am 6ft 1 the space for my legs was not unpleasant.
As always on long distance flights you are supplied with a pillow and blanket. Small headphones are also available if you need.
All the safety information. I always advise looking at this card for a few minutes so you are familiar with the details. Especially flying over the ocean you never know.
On board toilet:
This is the toilet for economy class. Pleasant space with hand soap, extra toilet paper, napkins and room scented spray. Rather clear instructions too.
On board meals:
The flight attendants handling my section of the plane were really great. Always serving everything with a smile, nothing was too much trouble.
As you can see I had a double Buffalo Tree bourbon cream on ice and Coke Zero with my meal. Nice that they serve the Africa based Buffalo Tree instead of Baileys while flying to Africa.
It was a really nice curry shrimp meal with green beans and rice. Garbanzo beans and red peppers salad, bread roll with really good butter and a lemon blonde cookie/cake with white chocolate.
It was a great meal overall, nothing to complain about at all.
The flight took about 16 hours but you must add 7 hours because of time zones to work out the time you arrive.
They next served us a snack at 5am US time which was about 12PM Africa time.
I chose a pizza pie versus a chicken sandwich but the pizza was not very pleasant. I left most of it. I also had hot tea and some candy I had in my bag
The flight:
The on screen maps were rather comprehensive giving various views of the trip. The first map shows how we initially flew north-east and only headed south once we got to the coast line. The second map shows how long we fly over the sea with the corner of Africa or tip of South America still hours away if we have a problem.
This is the lovely view of the never ending dark blue sky that you see while up high.
Disembarkation:
I popped into the first class area while leaving. It looks nicely spread out with a lot of privacy.
My last view of the plane once I had left. It still blows my mind that you can fly 16 hours across the ocean with only 2 engines.
South Africa was president of the G20 for the year until 30 November 2025 so most of the greetings at the airport referred to that status.
In summary:
This was my first time flying Delta on a long distance flight and this was the longest flight I had ever taken. My previous longest was about 14 hours from Dallas to Abu Dhabi in the Middle East.
The Delta staff were lovely, the food was very pleasant for economy food and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the flight. I will not hesitate to fly Delta again if the opportunity presents itself.
