Delta BusinessElite Flight 466 New York-Moscow – Review

Pan Am, the first U.S. carrier to fly to Russia, launched its New York-Moscow route on June 17, 1968. The flight, which was in the air for 11 hours and 35 minutes, made a refueling stop in Copenhagen and arrived in Moscow one hour late due to weather in Denmark. According to contemporary press reports, the menu was a mixture of American and Russian food including martinis, vodka, Muscovite Chicken, Veal Smetana, Beef Stroganoff, and Russian Coffee Cream Layer Cake.

The service is now operated three times weekly by Delta, which took over the route when Pan Am agreed to sell it its routes across the Atlantic and beyond in June 1991.

While aware of the route’s history when boarding the plane, I was surprised to find out that our purser, Neeltje Kline, had not only been a Pan Am purser but that New York-Moscow had been one of her regular routes.

I arrived at JFK’s Terminal 4 and, since protocol required verification that I had the proper visa for the trip, proceeded to the BusinessElite check-in area. There several agents were free, so my check-in formalities took a mere five minutes including the exchange of pleasantries.

The check-in area is designed to efficiently feed travelers into the PreCheck line and, in six minutes I was airside and, somewhat uncharacteristically, had time to stop off briefly at the Sky Club for a drink.

BOARDING

Delta operates flight 466 with a Boeing 767-300ER. It has a rather large business-class cabin with 36 seats, followed by 29 in Economy Comfort, the airline’s premium-economy lite section, and 143 in coach.

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