ATLANTA — Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has announced that they are flying special flights for the solar eclipse that is expected across parts of the US next month.
The eclipse will happen on April 8 and Delta says you’ve never truly experienced one until you’ve seen one at 30,000 feet in the air.
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The peak spectacle will last up to four minutes, 28 seconds in the path of total darkness — twice as long as the total solar eclipse that dimmed U.S. skies in 2017.
This eclipse will take a different and more populated route, entering over Mexico’s Pacific coast, dashing up through Texas and Oklahoma, and crisscrossing the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England, before exiting over eastern Canada into the Atlantic.
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“Delta flight 1218 will be specifically operated on an A220-300, which will offer especially premium viewing due to the aircraft’s extra-large windows. The flight will depart from Austin at 12:15 p.m. CT and land in Detroit at 4:20 p.m. ET — timed to give those on board the best chance of safely viewing the solar eclipse at its peak,” Delta said in a news release.
Even if you’re not on the special flight, flyers will also be able to see the spectacle if they are on these flights as well:
- 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
“The April 8 eclipse is the last total eclipse we’ll see over North America until 2044,” said Warren Weston, Delta Air Lines lead meteorologist. “This eclipse will last more than twice as long as the one that occurred in 2017, and the path is nearly twice as wide.”
The totality for the 2044 eclipse will be confined to Western Canada, Montana and North Dakota.
There won’t be another U.S. eclipse, spanning coast to coast, until 2045. That one will stretch from Northern California all the way to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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