A while between drinks due to some other commitments. Apologies for the delay.
Toronto – New York City
The previous evening Mrs NoName had asked me to confirm what time we needed to be at YYZ for our 6am flight to JFK the next morning. Perhaps I was reading the Delta website incorrectly but what I interpreted from it was that YYZ-JFK required me to have checked my baggage in 3hrs prior to scheduled departure. So they want us there by 3am? Really? A quick call to confirm and yes, please have bags checked by 3am.
So up we got at the ridiculous hour of 1:45am for what I knew in my heart was a totally unnecessary 2:30am cab ride to YYZ. Arrived just before 3am and yep, check in desks not open. What a surprise! Stood around for about half an hour for the desks to open and then pretty quickly was checked in and ready for security/immigration. Not a very exciting thing to be doing at 3:30am when you could be still in bed and with immigration not opening until 4am I was even less impressed. However, there was one ongoing piece of entertainment that livened up the morning and made it more bearable. A belligerent young American refusing to follow directions, trying to jump the queue and generally being an rude, arrogant @ss towards security & immigration staff was a genuine highlight. When he refused to get off his mobile phone in the immigration queue even after the entire room heard him being yelled at by security (“if you want to fly today GET OFF THE PHONE”) the show was on! Instead of just hanging up and keeping a low profile he decided to audibly argue with staff. Would he be dragged away and refused boarding? We were hoping for it but sadly he eventually shut up and made his way to the departure lounge with the rest of us.
YYZ-JFK DL2837 Seats: 12A/B
A minor relief after being up unnecessarily early was a little more space courtesy of Comfort+ tickets I had bought. This was the only flight of the trip that we paid cash for so it was quite the score when I found that Delta were selling Comfort+ on this flight for approx.. $30 per ticket CHEAPER than economy (C$209 v approx. C$240). The crowds massed at the gate in anticipation of boarding. We also got up knowing that we would have priority boarding and were confronted by a woman deliberated moving into our path so as not to let us in. Got a dirty look from her when priority boarding was called and we excused ourselves as we went straight past her.
Onto the plane (717-200 I believe) and into our seats. I had selected the A/B side of the plane as the configuration was 2-3 in Comfort+ and not having anyone sitting next to us was a big plus at this time of morning. Pretty quick boarding process and we were away on time spot on 6am. Very uneventful flight and we just took the opportunity to close our eyes and get a few more minutes sleep. Landed at JFK in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Off pretty quick, down to baggage retrieval and to our surprise were among the first half dozen bags onto the carousel. Would we pay for Comfort+ again? On a short flight like this probably not unless we found a similar situation where it was cheaper than Y. Maybe on a longer flight it would be worth it but the differences weren’t noticeable on this particular flight.