The Delta Air Lines Flight Museum will once again welcome members of the public starting July 1 after being largely off-limits for more than a year because of the COVID-19 crisis. The closest the public could get to the hangar in recent months was the parking lot where a mass vaccination site had been set up.
Vaccinations will continue to be available at the museum through a partnership with pharmacy chain CVS, no appointment necessary. But visitors will finally be able to visit the museum for its originally intended purpose – including a tour of Delta’s first Boeing 747-400 ‘Queen of the Skies’.
Not that the museum sat idle over the last 15 months. At the height of the pandemic, Delta used the large expanse of the main museum hangar to create a socially distanced reservations call centre when it became apparent that its normal facilities wouldn’t be enough.
And when the vaccination drive first started, the museum also hosted a vaccine clinic for Delta’s own employees.
As well as Delta Ship 6301 – or the ‘747 Experience’ as it’s now known – the museum is also home to propeller and jet planes and a full flight simulator. Originally opened in 1995, the museum is located at the heart of Delta’s worldwide headquarters in Atlanta.
“We’re excited to open our doors to visitors after 15 months,” Tiffany Meng, director of operations at the museum said. “The museum will be open modified hours, but as we continue to monitor COVID-19’s progression, we hope to add Mondays and Tuesdays back to the schedule in August.”
For the time being at least, the museum will only be open Thursdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m and face masks will need to worn in the museum buildings and aircraft.
The 68,000 square-foot facility occupies two original maintenance hangars dating from the 1940s. A tour of the museum starts with Delta’s beginnings as a crop-dusting operation in the rural South and takes visitors through the early propeller era of passenger service and into the jet age.
