Spread the love
Post Views: 3

On Tuesday 2 July, LATAM was the only airline that flew in the shadow of the total solar eclipse (TSE), offering a truly exclusive experience for its passengers. On the EFLIGHT 2019-MAX flight departing from Easter Island, over 50 leading eclipse experts and enthusiasts flew 12,500 metres high in a 787-9 Dreamliner over the Pacific Ocean. During the flight, passengers experienced the total darkness for more than eight minutes, tripling the approximately 2.5 minutes that it lasted on land.

LATAM followed the total solar eclipse over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, 2 July

“At LATAM, we are committed to showcasing the best of Latin America to the world and we are proud that the leading eclipse chasers chose us as the airline to follow the path of this phenomenon on a unique flight over the Pacific that took off from one of the remotest places on the planet, Easter Island,” said Yanina Manassa, Customer Service Director, LATAM Airlines Group.

On board, LATAM took more than 50 travellers from 10 countries – including scientists as well as amateur astronomers and enthusiasts – to experience the equivalent of three TSE’s in a single sighting. One of the passengers, Dr. Glenn Schneider of the United States, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, not only helped plan the flight, but also recorded his 35th TSE, a new Guinness World Record.

The flight departed from Easter Island’s Mataveri airport at 09:50 local time, heading northwest for two hours and 30 minutes to position itself in the TSE’s trajectory on an eastbound flight path, before returning to the island with a total journey time of five hours and 30 minutes.

As one of the three most sustainable airline groups in the world*, LATAM is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and the group decided to offset the emissions of EFLIGHT 2019-MAX through a reforestation project in Madre de Dios in the Peruvian Amazon.

LATAM worked with T.E.I. TOURS & TRAVEL, the trip organiser, and leading scientists for two years to plan every detail of the flight, from predicting the trajectory of the eclipse and identifying the best route for passengers to experience the phenomenon, to avoid clouds and other weather factors.