This is pretty much the coolest thing we’ve heard in a while. You can book Delta Flight 1218 to watch the solar eclipse while on the aircraft... getting an amazing view at 30,000 feet. Plus, it’s the impossible made possible: a flight where the middle seat will be better than the aisle! According to Delta’s press release, the carrier will offer a special flight for umbraphiles (people who travel for eclipses) that leaves Austin and flies to Detroit on April 8, keeping the plane in the path of totality as much as possible. You’ve got to love an air carrier that creates a flight just for this fantastic experience!
Of course, for this roughly three-hour flight, Delta has chosen an aircraft with the largest windows, the A220-300.
The flight leaves Austin at 12:15pm. CT and arrives in Detroit at 4:20 p.m. ET, which means these passengers will safely view the solar eclipse at its peak. Eric Beck, the company’s managing director of domestic network planning, says, “This flight is the result of significant collaboration and exemplifies the close teamwork Delta is known for — from selecting an aircraft with larger windows to determining the exact departure time from Austin and the experiences at the gate and in the air."
No one's going to need in-flight entertainment for this run. And we're hoping spirits will run high and there'll be no fights over overhead bin space.
Now, what if you can’t manage to book a seat on this flight? (And we’re gonna be honest with you; we just tried to book it and it’s completely sold out. But hey: people could suddenly lose interest and cancel their ticket...stranger things have happened) There are other options. Delta will offer prime eclipse-viewing opportunities on five other flights that date:
DL 5699, DTW-HPN, 2:59 pm EST departure, ERJ-175
DL 924, LAX-DFW, 8:40 am PST departure, A320
DL 2869, LAX-SAT, 9:00 am PST departure, A319
DL 1001, SLC-SAT, 10:08 am MST departure, A220-300
DL 1683, SLC-AUS, 9:55 am MST departure, A320
Finally, you can fly to a place within the path of totality to watch the eclipse from terra firma. Those destinations include, among others, Little Rock, Arkansas and San Antonio, Texas.
If you can’t schedule the eclipse, it’s cool. You can try again in 20 years. “The April 8 eclipse is the last total eclipse we’ll see over North America until 2044,” says Warren Weston, Delta’s lead meteorologist. He says that this year’s eclipse will “last more than twice as long as the one that occurred in 2017, and its path is nearly twice as wide.”
Word to the wise: don’t forget your protective viewing glasses.