In February, my family and I took a trip to visit my sister’s family in Texas.  We had a total of four legs of travel, or, four different planes over the course of two flight itineraries. This was our first time flying since the pandemic began so we weren’t sure what all to expect.  I wanted to share some of the things I observed and experienced while traveling on Delta during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Destination Travel Requirements Map

Delta had the easiest interactive map to find out what the destination travel requirements are. You can check it out here. The system allowed us to check what domestic travel restrictions there might be. Luckily for us, there were no extra requirements when flying from Idaho to Texas.

Blocking Middle Seats

In the airport there were stickers on seats, asking passengers to leave them empty to allow for social distancing. On the plane, Delta had the middle seats blocked as well. I’m not sure how long Delta will continue with this policy, but it’s currently in effect until April 30th, 2021. Current updates on blocking middle seats should show up when you start the booking process. This allowed people more space between the other passengers.  Of course, as we were traveling as a family, we were all seated together.

Required face coverings

Of course, we knew that face coverings would be required in the airports and on the plane for anybody over the age of two. We were a little nervous about how well our 5 year old would do for that many hours. But, we have been wearing masks in public as a family so I was fairly confident that he would do all right. There were times that his mask slipped under his nose and I just tried to gently remind him when I noticed it. Masks could be removed or pulled down briefly while taking a bite of food or drinking, but were to remain in place over the mouth and nose for the duration of the flight. We didn’t find this to be a problem. Although, I did hear flight attendants having to remind others to replace or pull their masks up over their noses.

Boarding the flight

On all of my previous flights, my boarding experiences have always taken so long. I think that they figure if you’re willing to pay for first class and the comfort levels on a plane, then you should board first.  Before the pandemic, it seemed that every plane carrier I traveled with loaded the plane from front to back. This is always a pain because it takes longer to load as people are trying to put their bags in the overhead bins.

With the new Covid procedures, Delta has been loading their planes from the back to the front. I think that this is something that should absolutely stay in place when the pandemic is over! I feel like boarding took less than half of the time it normally does. It was so much more efficient! Of course, they still allowed anybody traveling with small children and anybody who felt like they needed extra time to get settled to board first. As we boarded our plane, the flight attendants handed out hand sanitizing wipes. These were great for wiping down our hands and our seat, and anything else we were most likely to touch during a flight. 

Prepackaged snack bags

Prior to the pandemic, the flight attendants would come around with several drink options, and snack options. Delta has continued their snack service, but has had to adjust the way that they serve beverages. Therefore, only water is provided by the airline. For this portion of service, the flight attendants handed out pre-packaged snack bags. Our snack bags contained a mini water bottle, a bag of goldfish, a ginger cookie, a napkin, hand sanitizer wipes, and a thank you card from Delta. I’m not a fan of ginger cookies and my husband is not a fan of goldfish, so we just swapped each other for those items.

Extra little touches

I am not sure why we received this, but one of the fight attendants handed us a thank you note for flying with them. There were a handful of other passengers who also received these thank you notes. I think most were families traveling with young children. I just thought that was a nice touch for those parents. People are often scared to travel with young children. And others are really hesitant to be the ones that have to sit next to the family traveling with children.

Our flight connected in Salt Lake City, which has a brand new airport. The airport is still undergoing construction. Because of this, one of the flight attendants came around to the passengers who were connecting with another flight. She wanted to make sure that they knew where they needed to be. She pulled up a map and showed us what the terminals look like and how to get from one terminal to the other. We were already a little bit familiar with the Salt Lake City airport. We had been in Salt Lake when we flew from Idaho falls before connecting to our Houston flight. But this was just such a nice touch. They really went out of their way to make sure that we could make our flight on time and know where we needed to be.

We look forward to flying with Delta again in the future. We are grateful for the steps they have taken during this time!