I feel terrible. The other day I shared with readers a chance to select my First Class seat courtesy of Delta Platinum Medallion status on what would possibly be my last DC 9-50 flight ever. The results were overwhelming in support of seat 3A. This is likely because the last row available (row 4) gets their drink last, and the only other row (row 1) was a bulkhead.
Unfortunately, like every week on the road, things change. I had to same day onto a different flight and I lost my upgrade. The good news is I was still able to select a pretty good seat, one in fact, that is what I consider the best coach seat on the entire plane.
I got to the gate and the relatively little DC 9-50 appeared ready to get up and go…
…until I checked out the other side of the plane where I saw the engine door open. The excellent operations crew at Delta had the engine fixed for an on-time departure. So no harm no foul.
I boarded and did the walk of shame back to coach and my coach seat. I selected what I consider the best coach seat, seat 6a. Not only is this seat on the two-seat side of the plane, it has exceptional leg room. Check out the leg room directly behind First Class. It is actually better leg room than First Class itself.
The overhead controls.
Here are the un-filtered pictures.
Boarding you’ll notice the flight attendant controls to the left are showing their age.
A good view of the cockpit windows.
Once I got settled I looked out the window to see this beautiful single aisle plane and it reminded me, the DC 9-50 is a vintage plane.
Bottom Line
I feel terrible. I almost feel like I failed my readers, seat 3A was selected, I selected it, but travel changes got in the way and I had to book another flight thereby loosing my First Class upgrade on the DC 9-50. Looks like I”ll have to take another DC 9-50 flight before they are retired.
The DC 9-50 is an old reliable plane that is about to be retired. If you want to fly one of these planes before they go into retirement, you might want to try and book one soon. Delta will retire them in early 2014.
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About The Weekly Flyer
The Weekly Flyer writes about travel from a business traveler perspective. He travels the world every week accumulating points and miles along the way.
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Well, you got the best seat in coach, but it is shy on shoulder room.
For the last few weeks, I have been on DC 9-50 twice a week, and 3 of the last 6 have had mechanical problems. Monday of this week, the fuel gauge would not work, and as the pilot noted, “We do not want to run out of fuel”
So maybe their retirement time is coming for a reason.
Why would you use filters on your photos?
@James K: The filter brings out that nostalgic color picture look from when the DC 9-50s were first brought online in ’65. Where’s Dad’s Galaxy 500? Nice artistic touch, don’t you think?
Hi Mike – Thanks for the explanation. Totally agree 🙂
I see the point, but to me it looks more like you went on Instagram and clicked “filter.” Like a poet who intentionally removes words to make things more vague and artistic
Hi James – …and I didn’t even know it! 🙂
Firstly, great write up. One does wonder why these things are still in the air, but a testament to how well built they are. The same could have been said of the DC10. It’s just bad press that binned the aircraft (incidentally, the first proper flight I ever took!).
Anyway, regarding the filters. They bring nothing to the party. The photos themselves show the nostalgicness of the aircraft.
Have a think to yourself. In 20 years, are you going to say, “My these photos look nostalgic. I’m sure glad I used Instagram!” or are you going to say, “Whatever possessed me to ruin these perfectly good photos?”