{"id":19437,"date":"2016-03-08T01:16:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T17:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/alaska-airlines-changes-anchorage-honolulu-flight-to-catch-total-solar-eclipse\/"},"modified":"2016-03-08T01:16:43","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T17:16:43","slug":"alaska-airlines-changes-anchorage-honolulu-flight-to-catch-total-solar-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/alaska-airlines-changes-anchorage-honolulu-flight-to-catch-total-solar-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Airlines changes Anchorage-Honolulu flight to catch total solar eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A
A passenger aboard a Lufthansa flight watches a solar eclipse out the window in March 2015. Passengers on an Alaska Airlines flight will have a similar opportunity on Tuesday. (Credit: Lufthansa via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, that\u2019s service: Amateur astronomers persuaded Seattle-based Alaska Airlines to shift its departure time for Tuesday\u2019s flight from Anchorage to Honolulu 25 minutes later so that passengers can see a total solar eclipse en route.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an unbelievably accommodating gesture,\u201d Mike Kentrianakis, solar eclipse project manager for the American Astronomical Society, said in an Alaska Airlines blog post about the schedule shift. \u201cNot only is Alaska Airlines getting people from Point A to Point B, but they\u2019re willing to give them an exciting flight experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to the time change, the passengers on Alaska Flight 870 are now due to see a minute and 53 seconds of totality out the window from a height of 37,000 feet, well above any clouds. (But if you haven\u2019t bought a ticket, don\u2019t bother looking; the flight\u2019s sold out.)<\/p>\n

\"Intercepting
The flight path for Flight 870 intersects the path of totality for Tuesday\u2019s eclipse. (Credit: Alaska Airlines)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The maneuver was engineered by Joe Rao, an associate astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History\u2019s Hayden Planetarium as well as a columnist for Space.com and meteorologist for News 12 Westchester in New York.<\/p>\n

Rao started making plans to catch this week\u2019s eclipse a year ago, but he worried that the view from Indonesia or Micronesia might be clouded out during monsoon season. So he checked to see if any commercial airline flights intersected with the narrow path of totality. Flight 870 was the one that stuck out. Only problem was, the plane would pass through too early.<\/p>\n

Watch the total solar eclipse online \u2013 and get ready for 2017\u2019s big one<\/h4>\n

He and other astronomers took their case for delaying the departure to Alaska Airlines, and the schedule planning team decided to make it happen. Thanks to discussions with air traffic controllers, the Alaska crew will have the flexibility to change their course en route to Honolulu to keep their date with the eclipse.<\/p>\n

Rao and about a dozen other astronomers booked seats on the flight months ago, but many of the other Hawaii-bound passengers may not know what\u2019s coming. The astronomers are bringing along hundreds of eclipse-filter glasses so everyone on the plane can watch the eclipse\u2019s partial phase safely. (The glasses won\u2019t be needed during totality.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe on the Alaska Airlines flight will be the last people in the world to see this eclipse,\u201d said Craig Small, a semi-retired astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History who booked 7F, a window seat. \u201cNobody will see it after us.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=edsjvlTlWfg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A passenger aboard a Lufthansa flight watches a solar eclipse out the window in March 2015. Passengers on an Alaska Airlines flight will have a similar opportunity on Tuesday. (Credit: Lufthansa via YouTube) Now, that\u2019s service: Amateur astronomers persuaded Seattle-based Alaska Airlines to shift its departure time for Tuesday\u2019s flight from Anchorage to Honolulu 25 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5384,564,4895,1418,21,4465],"class_list":["post-19437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-airlines","tag-aviation","tag-science","tag-solar-eclipse","tag-space","tag-travel"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}