The widest economy seats in the Delta Air Lines fleet are on sale Saturday October 13 as the US airline starts selling tickets for its much anticipated Airbus A220 aircraft.
Inaugural A220 flights are set to depart January 31 from Delta’s hub at New York’s LaGuardia Airport with Boston Logan International and Dallas/Fort Worth the first destinations.
They will be followed in March by Detroit-Dallas/Fort Worth and LaGuardia-Houston in April.
Other routes planned for the rest of 2019 are: Salt Lake City-Dallas/Fort Worth (May), Minneapolis/St Paul-Dallas/Fort Worth (June), Houston to Detroit and Minneapolis/St Paul (July), Houston-Salt Lake City (July) and New York/JFK- Dallas/Fort Worth (August).
Delta is the first US carrier to take delivery of the A220, formerly the Bombardier CSeries, as part of a strategy to upgrade its fleet with more efficient aircraft.
New planes involved in the strategy to replace 20 percent of its older aircraft by 2020 include Boeing 737-900ERs, AirbusA321s, Airbus A350s as well as the Airbus A330-900neo and the Airbus A321neo.
The new A220-100s will feature 109 seats with 12 in first class, 15 in Delta Comfort+ and 82 in economy.
READ: Delta announces new Europe routes as US carriers beef up summer schedules.
They will feature seat-back screens, fast 2Ku Wi-Fi and generous 18.6-inch wide economy seats in a three-two configuration.
This makes the A220 economy seats the widest such seats in Delta’s fleet and among the widest of any narrowbody aircraft.
They are also wider than many widebody aircraft — particularly the 10-across Boeing 777s and nine-across B787s.
Other innovations include high-capacity overhead bins, extra large windows and full spectrum LED lighting.
All passengers get personal power ports and complimentary entertainment.
The first class will see the debut of a new seat design in a two-two configuration and the biggest in-flight entertainment (IFE) screens in the domestic fleet.
Delta has gone against the trend of making people bring their own device to access IFE and in August equipped its 600th aircraft with seat-back screens.
Delta’s first A220 rolled out of the paint shop in Mirabel, Canada, last month and conducted its first test flight last week ahead of delivery later this month.
The planes are powered by Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan PW1500G engine and are expected to give Delta a 20 percent improvement in fuel efficiency compared to similarly sized aircraft.
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