On Jan. 6th Delta will retire its remaining Douglas DC-9 aircraft following Flight 2014 scheduled to depart Minneapolis/St. Paul for Atlanta at 4:20 p.m., the last scheduled commercial flight of the DC-9 by a major U.S. airline. To acknowledge the DC-9’s retirement, the last flight has been tagged DL2014 noting the final year of service, while the preceding flight operating from Detroit to Minneapolis/St. Paul will be flight DL1965, the aircraft’s initial year of service.
Delta was the launch customer for the original 65-seat version of the DC-9 in 1965 as the airline replaced propeller aircraft on high-frequency, short-haul domestic routes. The twin-engine plane was removed from the Delta fleet in 1993, but larger variants reentered service following the merger; those aircraft joined Northwest after it acquired Republic Airlines in 1986. Delta has flown a total of 305 DC-9s since 1965.
The replacements…Delta began taking delivery of 88 Boeing 717-200 aircraft and 100 Boeing 737-900ER aircraft in October and November, respectively. Delta also recently announced an order for 40 Airbus aircraft including 30 narrowbody A321s, which will begin to be delivered in 2016.
Related –
- Final MD DC-10 Flight – See the Multiple Liveries Worn Over the Years
- A New(er) Plane Takes to the Skies for Delta
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1 comment
I am booked on DL1965 and DL 2014. I thought it would be fun to see what an airline does when they retire a type of plane. Northwest redid the interiors of these planes about a decade ago and they are still quite nice.