Super Bowl Buzz: Fly Delta, fly high!
A flight attendant waves a New York Giants team flag out of the window of the plane as the team arrives at the Indianapolis International Airport for NFL footbal's Super Bowl XLVI. (Jan. 31, 2012) Credit: AP
INDIANAPOLIS
For the most superstitious of Giants fans, an ominous omen: The airline that flew the Patriots here has a pretty darn good winning percentage in the big game.
Of the last 10 Super Bowls to which Delta Air Lines has chartered teams, seven of those teams returned home with plans for a championship parade.
Coincidence? Of course! But in this grand spectacle of a sporting event -- in a game in which some folks even place stock in winning the opening coin toss -- every trend has to have some merit to it.
"The intensity for our customers is at its highest this time of year," said Bill Wernecke, director of Delta's charter services. "And we feel we're there to help them win football games by making their travel as smooth and seamless and comfortable as we can make it."
Wernecke said the competition among airlines for the chartering contracts of professional sports teams can be just as fierce as it is on the field between the teams, which is all the more reason why he enjoys the success of the teams that Delta flies.
Delta charters about 90 professional sports teams, he said. The airline took the last two Super Bowl champs, the Packers and Saints, to the big game.
The Giants use United Airlines for their charter services. A spokesman for the airline declined to comment about flying the Giants here -- and about the airline's record in the Super Bowl, for that matter. The Giants have used United for "most of the past 25 years," a team spokesman said.
The Giants landed at Indianapolis International Airport at 2:59 p.m. Monday after a hearty send-off from a small crowd at their practice facility.
"I think the players were excited," Tom Coughlin said. "When we got on the plane, it was the video cameras and all of that stuff."
When the plane landed, a crew member raised a Giants flag out the window as it taxied on the runway.
By that time, the Patriots already had been here a full day. They arrived Sunday afternoon, a day earlier than is typical for the Super Bowl, because coach Bill Belichick wants his team following what would have been its typical weeklong practice schedule as it would during the regular season.
It was the Patriots' first time on a plane since they returned from a regular-season game in Denver on Dec. 18. The Giants are coming off two consecutive road playoff games, including a cross-country trek to San Francisco for the Jan. 22 NFC Championship Game.
Both teams fly on similarly sized Boeing 767 planes that seat roughly 250.
Although Delta reconfigures its planes for its NBA teams to account for the players' unusual height, Wernecke said no changes are made to its planes for the oversized football players, mostly because these teams -- with eight regular-season road games -- fly only a handful of times a year. But don't feel too bad about the oversized linemen. Because most teams have traveling parties of about 140, there are a lot of empty seats.
"They all have a seat in between them," Wernecke said.
Of course, come Monday, you can bet the players on the winning team won't care what kind of leg room they have for their flight coming home . . .
As long as there's room in the overhead for the Lombardi Trophy.
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