I recently took a long weekend trip to Maryland, and as part of that journey, I had the opportunity to fly on one of Delta’s ex-Lion Air 737s. I had a Delta voucher that I needed to burn, so I booked a coach ticket via Atlanta. The first part of the journey included breakfast at the Delta SkyClub, followed by a flight in coach, and then “all day dining” at the Atlant SkyClub.
Bottom-line up front
The ex-Lion Air 737 first class product is noteworthy mostly because it differs noticeably from what you’d usually experience in the forward cabin on a short-haul flight. The seat is better in some way (more legroom but less padded) than the typical domestic recliner, but the overall experience doesn’t differ much.
The ground experience
As you might expect, the bulk of the journey was uneventful; the highlight of the food on the trip for me was the breakfast of a bagel and egg bites!
I had a multi-hour layover in Atlanta, so I got to watch some of the ebbs and flow of people in the lounge, but realistically, the only part of this trip that seemed interesting to me was the second flight of the journey. Delta acquired 33 737s from the Asian airline, LionAir back in 2022. When they joined the fleet, Delta made only some minor cosmetic updates to the aircraft. Specifically, they reupholstered the seats into Delta’s colors. You can identify them pretty easily from the seat map: they have 12 first class seats and only 6 comfort (extra legroom economy) seats.
For shorts hops from Atlanta to DC/Richmond or San Francisco to Salt Lake City, Delta often offers upgrades for “tens of dollars”. In this case, the upgrade came in at only $69 for the roughly 90 minute flight. If this had been an ordinary 737, I would not have bothered with the upgrade, but I wanted to check out the Lion Air seats!
I selected seat 1C, which tends to be one of my favorites. These aircraft only have 12 first class seats (and 168 economy seats), so I imagine clearing upgrades is difficult, but these aircraft aren’t generally flown on premium routes, so the routes likely have fewer elite members than others.
Since they opted to not update these seats (beyond reupholstering), they specifically keep these aircraft on relatively short routes to/from Atlanta. The seats have several levers on the arm that allow you to adjust the recline and leg rest (which is not standard in domestic first class). Based on my short experience, I think I actually liked this seat better for a short trip than a standard domestic recliner, but it’s not padded super well, so I imagine it’s not the most comfortable if it were used on a longer trip. I did like that I had way more legroom than is typical:
As you might expect for a flight of this length, the actual in-flight service was pretty minimal. We got a drinks round and some snacks. I also took the opportunity to check out the IFE screen, but I didn’t get it to work. I’m unsure if the IFE screen is supposed to work or not. Luckily, there was still WiFi streaming.
This flight was pretty uneventful, which is, arguably, what you want in a short flight. Although it is kind of funny that they can barely manage a drinks service on 90 minute flights like these, but European airlines can serve a (small) meal.
But before long, it was time to land, and we had a nice and smooth touchdown!
In summary, I enjoyed checking out this 737 configuration! The ground experience in Atlanta was good (4/5). The seat was good for a short flight, and although the novelty of it may be what I enjoyed most, I did have tons of legroom (5/5). The flight attendants were perfectly fine but unmemorable (3/5). The food and drinks on offer were similarly minimal (2/5). Having an apparently disabled(?) IFE screen was also a bit annoying (2/5). Overall, the flight gets a 16/25, which is slightly below average, but the novelty of the aircraft configuration is what I was primarily looking for!
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