eclipse flights?
 

I know DL has a lot of hoopla going on today with their specially designated flight(s) but I don't think AA does.

Is anyone by coincidence traveling from DFW to any NE destinations today that would put them right in the area of totality?

I believe AA 2336 might fit the bill, and is still in flight. I didn't see any additional flights that would really work that well, but perhaps others can weigh in.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b432d09e03.jpg
In the middle of the eclipse totality on AA 2246 4-8-24

Here you go. Currently on AA 2246, we were in the totality for about 10-15 mins right around Southern MO/IL.

BillBurn that's cool as hell. Your flight path almost looks like your pilots intentionally charted it to achieve this.

I suspect they had something to do with the flightpath or at least begged AADispatch for the routing. I'll bet the pilots were taking more photographs than the passengers. Not sure what Delta was charging for the Eclipse specials but this was probably a relative bargain.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f5737fdac3.jpg

My eclipse flight story: in 2017 I was flying on a client's G280 DAL-CHS for business and all excited about an eclipse viewing party planned by the FBO at CHS where we were scheduled to park. Flight plan would have put us on the ground at CHS in plenty of time to enjoy the fun party the FBO was planning on their ramp. Well, even G280s aren't immune to mechanicals. The plane was coming right out of maintenance at Gulfstream DAL and we took about an hour and a half delay. If memory serves, it was a nav database load issue and maybe other things. Well, thanks to that delay we were treated to an amazing inflight view of the eclipse at cruise over Georgia. Getting closer to CHS, the weather turned miserable, we had to take a few delay vectors before shooting the approach and wound up parking on the ramp in a torrential driving rainstorm. FBO staff shared that the thunderstorms started right around eclipse time. Their planned party on the ramp was a total washout.

So, flight delays sometimes create once-in-a-lifetime memories.

Well that's awesome. Hadn’t even occurred to me to try to catch it in the air. (I was in Louisville for the 2017 one and wasn't too impressed, so I didn't bother with being home in Maine for this one... but I think I might have been impressed by seeing it in the air!)

I found a picture from the DAL-CHS flight back in 2017: 39 nautical miles west of the Colliers VOR descending out of FL375 for FL350. One of the things that really impressed me then that this view out the front windshields didn't capture was that in the lead-up to totality, the view was totally different out of different sides of the passenger cabin. Darkness to the north, light to the south (or maybe I have that backwards; wish I had more pictures that I took but my Blackberry didn't do it justice).

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5129f83149.jpg

And a few more I found
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c8778cb892.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...55ad6e62c0.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0140d2b844.jpg

Looks like it was quite the view. Thanks for posting. Certainly caught up in the moment as it would be impossible to be in totality for that long - even traveling directly in the path with a subsonic jet. From a NASA quote about their eclipse chasers: "While the eclipse will last no more than four and a half minutes at any point on the ground, the planes will see an eclipse that lasts about 25 percent longer, over 6 minutes and 22 seconds. This map shows the path of the 2024 total solar eclipse. The dark path across the continent is the path of totality"

Flight 2873 about 20 minutes before landing at DFW
 

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e460b366f.jpeg
This is the view of the ground as the eclipse moved in. At this time, we were about 20 minutes away from landing at DFW