ATLANTA — A rare opportunity nearly never strikes twice, but Delta is giving flyers another chance to see next month’s solar eclipse from 30,000 feet in the air.

Delta Air Lines announced last week that it will be offering a flight along the path of totality between Austin and Detroit.

The flight for April 8 sold out quickly.

“Following the Mon., Feb. 19, announcement of the first path-of-totality flight, searches for flights from AUS-DTW on Delta channels spiked by more than 1,500%,” Delta officials said.

Because of that, Delta will now offer another flight in the totality zone, this time taking off from Dallas-Fort Worth.

“DL1010 will be operated on an A321neo — a larger plane than the AUS-DTW A220-300 — to allow more customers to experience the eclipse path of totality,” officials explained. “The A321neo is Delta’s most fuel-efficient aircraft featuring 20 domestic First Class seats, 42 Delta Comfort+ seats and 132 Main Cabin seats, all with memory foam cushioning for improved comfort.”

The peak spectacle will last up to four minutes and 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.

Even if you’re not on one of the special flights, 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 to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

©2024 Cox Media Group