Delta Air Lines Adds Special Solar Eclipse Flight in April

Delta Air Lines is giving flyers the opportunity to see April’s solar eclipse from 30,000 feet in the air with a new flight from Austin, Tex., launched specifically for the event.

Delta has scheduled flight 1218 from Austin to Detroit around the solar eclipse on April 8—the flight leaves Austin at 12:15 p.m. local time and lands in Detroit at 4:20 p.m. local time, which means the plane will be in the air, in the eclipse’s path, specifically during the viewable minutes.

Delta is flying the route on an A220-300, which has extra-large windows, specifically chosen to give flyers the best chance of “safely viewing the solar eclipse at its peak.”

The eclipse will last about four and a half minutes, twice as long as the 2017 eclipse, and will be viewable across parts of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, a path twice as wide as that 2017 event. 

Even if travelers are not able to score a seat on flight 1218 out of Austin, several other Delta flights operating around the same time will give them an opportunity to catch the eclipse in the air, including:

• A 2:59 p.m. departure out of Detroit (flight 5699) to Westchester County Airport.
• An 8:40 a.m. departure out of Los Angeles International (flight 924) to Dallas Fort Worth.
• A 9 a.m. departure out of Los Angeles International (flight 2869) to San Antonio International
• A 10:08 a.m. departure out of Salt Lake (flight 1001) to San Antonio.
• A 9:55 a.m. out of Salt Lake to Austin (flight 1283).