Delta Air Lines will soon say goodbye to its entire McDonnell Douglas fleet. Delta's MD-88s have already been planned to leave the fleet in 2020, but the carrier wants to phase out its MD-90s as well sooner than expected. Paul Jacobson, Chief Financial Officer of Delta, said that the airline would provide more information within a few months as to when the MD-90s will be dropped from the service. Delta Air Lines currently operates a fleet of 37 MD-90 that is 22 years old on average. (airlinerwatch.com) 更多...
Lease them to American until the 737 mess is fixed. The capacity of the planes is similar to the 737 and more expensive gas is still cheaper than losing all the income from the cancelled flights.
since American just"retired"recently all of its md 80's,they may still be able to put some of them back into service if not sold or parked in the desert or dismantled..they would not need to lease from delta..
Even if "mothballed" in the desert, it doesn't take a ton of work to get them airworthy again usually. That's probably even more true with the AA fleet because there are probably plenty that haven't been sitting there long.
Not sure but the 88/90s are probably more cost effective to operate but then juggling cost of returning to service the Super 80s vs leaseknv 88/90 from Delta ð¤·♂️
The "Mad Dogs" were always great. A real improvement from the earlier DC9s. Takeoffs and climbs were pretty impressive for their time. They will be missed, but it all boils down to economics and the cost of maintaining older airframes.
The back seat in a DC9-30 were no picnic either. The engines were always a little out of sync with each other and there was always an out of phase whine from one side to the other.
Gawd, yes! I remember being stuck in a back seat, and there was some vibration harmonics that made the thing so loud, and shaky. Yeah, I'll pass...
Plus, can anyone imagine the uncontained failure that the SouthWorst flight had, happening to an engine just off the side of the fuselage? Not likely survivable. Yikes...
Evolution of flight, who would know engines mounted on wings would relief bending moment and sheer stress back in the 50s... the reduction of weight (from not needing reinforcing the wings) making the aerodynamic benefits almost negligible and risk of a deep stall making tail mounting layout obsolete on 100+ seaters... I will always miss watching a MD-88 climbing out of ATL
HAH!!! I remember getting on a NorthWest DC-9, and seeing the huge plaque on the bulkhead, and commenting that the plane was only something like 4 years younger than I was at the time.
Shortly after that, coincidence I'm sure, NorthWest removed all the plaques. Too funny...
My Dad was a career "Tech-Rep" for Douglas, which was later taken into McDonnell: Douglas AD-1, A4D, DC-9 plus Yugoslav JAT DC-10s were his specialties. Also flew for Chalk Airways in retirement.
Loved flying the MD-80/ MD-88 during my travel days in Europe in the 80/90's. Personlly I would book the two seats together whenever I traveled with my wife on trips together. I will miss those jets.
Make them about 20 feet longer, 10 in the front, 10 in the rear... Then raise it another 3 feet off the ground... You shouldn't need the Nose to be pushed over due to too much thrust... With 2 big 757 size engines on the tail that sucker would never have thrust too far forward of the wing... LOL... What I would like to see is the return of the 727 stretched and 3 CFM 56's! :)
From the back: quiet sold comfortable plane. Replacing it with creaky rattling 321s that feel like the nose wheel coming up will shake the plane apart.