At just 356 miles, Delta begins flying the shortest wide-body route

Delta Airlines there’s a new shortest wide-body route — and it’s one that might surprise you.

The airline is currently deploying a Boeing 767-300 between its major hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) and Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), a route that is about an hour long. 500 km, as first seen in the Cirium schedule.

The Boeing 767 will operate almost daily from now until April 9, 2023, as part of a schedule extension just filed over the weekend. You’ll want to make sure to check the aircraft type when booking to see which planes are expected to operate your flight.

Delta’s 767-300 aircraft have two cabin arrangements. The latest configuration, internally named “76K”, features Delta One, Premium Select, Comfort+ and economy cabins. Delta starts a retrofit project for 19 of the company’s 767-300 (and some Airbus A330s) during the pandemic and the reconfiguration focused on adding premium economy class to these fleets.

The 216-seat Boeing 767-300 flying to Raleigh-Durham has 26 Delta One cabins in a 1-2-1 configuration, 18 Premium Select recliners in a 2-2-2 arrangement, 21 Comfort+ seats with ample legroom and 151 standard seats, economy class seats in 2-3-2 configuration.

When the 76K variant is operated on short domestic flights, the Premium Select cabin is marketing is Comfort +does that mean elite medal and those splurging on extra legroom can enjoy first-class recliners at no extra cost. Just make sure to choose a seat in rows 20 to 22 when booking.

Twin-aisle jets typically fly long-haul routes, but occasionally, airlines will deploy them on short domestic flights. It could be a great opportunity to try a long distance product no need to sit on a plane for hours when crossing different time zones.

These planes have fancy flat-flat business class, premium economy cabin and sometimes even spacious economy products.

During the pandemic, airlines have experienced a drop in demand, especially on international routes, so it’s a good idea to find wide-body airlines that operate hub-to-center flights or other routes. Incoming routes are quite common. famous destination in the countryAs Hawaii, Las Vegas and Orlando.

That said, the Raleigh-Durham certainly doesn’t “feel” like a traditional wide-body inland route. Maybe the 767 has some downtime in Atlanta and instead of parking the plane for a few hours, the airline thought it could fill the 216-seat plane on a short domestic route. Or, perhaps the airline is seeing a lot of demand for cargo or is doing some pilot training specifically for the 767 fleet.

Alternatively, it could only be used as a repositioning flight for the 767 to reach Raleigh-Durham ahead of Delta’s transatlantic route to Paris.

Either way, this would be a great opportunity to fly comfortably on such a short flight. Also, with plenty of premium seats, it’s easier to upgrade on one of these flights than on some frequencies operated by smaller domestic planes.

For Delta, the Atlanta to Raleigh-Durham route is currently the airline’s shortest regularly scheduled widebody flight. The airline plans to conduct three repositioning flights in January on an Airbus A330-300 from Boston arrive New Yorkbut that’s not a regular frequency.

Here are Delta’s 10 shortest widebody routes (with at least 10 frequencies in a given month), based on the Cirium schedule: