I was fortunate to be invited to the open house of SunTrust Park — which is the official new baseball stadium of the Atlanta Braves starting next month — earlier today; and one of the features outside of the ballpark is the tail of a Boeing 757-232 aircraft which was once operated by Delta Air Lines.
Tail of a Delta Boeing 757 Lands in Cobb County — On Purpose
Delta Air Lines is the official airline of the Atlanta Braves — only one of the many teams with which the airline has an official association of some type — and the airline wanted to show its support in a big way: by commemorating the stadium with a variety of “prominent branding, events and programming”, according to this article posted at Delta News Hub…
…and one major form of that prominent branding is the tail from Ship 624 — which is also known by registration #N624DL, according to this document of the fleet of Boeing 757-200 and Boeing 757-300 aircraft from the Delta Flight Museum.
“With the help of Delta TechOps and multiple other departments, the tail migrated from desert storage in Marana, Arizona, to hangar bay 12 in Atlanta where it was transformed over five months”, according to the aforementioned article. “On March 4 it was re-positioned to its new permanent home at Atlanta Braves’ new SunTrust Park.”
The two plaques at the base of the tail impart some interesting statistics: the Boeing 757-232 airplane — whose first flight was Thursday, January 1, 1987 and was retired on Friday, July 1, 2011 — flew 47,574,180 miles; carried 6,525,960 passengers; and recorded 79,290.3 flight hours and 38,388 landing cycles.
Dominating the top of the scoreboard in left field of the ballpark is the “widget” logo of Delta Air Lines — which measures in at 13 feet tall — and the DELTA logotype.
You can get quite close to the scoreboard.
A 15,000 square-foot Delta SKY360° Club will be opened by Delta Air Lines — which is a premium club space for fans behind home plate with an all-inclusive menu, multiple bars and exclusive views of post-game press conferences.
Other elements of Delta Air Lines at the ballpark include the Delta Parking Deck — which is a parking structure that consists of 878 parking spaces near the third base gate — and a private bunker suite.
Here is René de Lambert of Renés Points whenever he is denied an upgrade on a flight operated by Delta Air Lines.
Anyone who has flown as a passenger on overseas and long-haul flights aboard airplanes operated by Delta Air Lines will recognize the name in the photograph shown above.
Your Chance to Win With Braves First Class
Delta Air Lines will launch Braves First Class — which is a month-long program designed to celebrate ‘firsts’ of the Atlanta Braves that happen in the new stadium — on Monday, March 27, 2017. Starting on that day, you can sign up for a chance to win prizes based on team ‘firsts’ at SunTrust Park. Contest categories include:
- Tier 1: First home run, win, stolen base – one fan receives an item autographed by Swanson for each first.
- Tier 2: First grand slam, shutout, walk-off hit –one fan for each first receive round-trip travel for two within the continental United States.
- Tier 3: No hitter, hit for cycle, triple play – one fan receives opportunity to throw out first pitch at Braves regular season home game.
Summary
I cannot recall a time when an authentic part of an airplane operated by Delta Air Lines was ever in Cobb County, which is a county located northwest of Atlanta — although the part of Cobb County in which the stadium is located has officially had an Atlanta city ZIP code for decades.
In fact, seeing Delta Air Lines at all in Cobb County — instead of Fulton County and Clayton County, where the international airport which serves the greater Atlanta metropolitan area is located — was somewhat surreal.
For a future article, I intend to post my thoughts pertaining to SunTrust Stadium itself — as well as my uncensored thoughts…
All photographs ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
