- Delta has set a retirement date for its fleet of MD-88s and MD-90s.
- The MDs were not supposed to be retired until the end of 2020, but was brought up due to the decrease in travel demand arising from the global pandemic.
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It’s no secret that Delta has been planning to phase out their fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-88s and MD-90s by June of this year. The domestic workhorses which served the airline from as early as 1987, will fly their final scheduled flights on June 2 before being flown off to Blytheville, Arkansas, for retirement.
The very last flights pay tribute to the two variants as follows.
- Flight DL90 – Operated by an MD-90 – Will fly from Houston (IAH) to Atlanta (ATL), touching down a few minutes before 9am local time.
- Flight DL88 – Operated by an MD-88 – Will fly from Washington-Dulles (IAD) to Atlanta (ATL), touching down at 10am local time.
Even though the MDs were not supposed to be retired until the end of 2020, the company was forced to bring up that timetable after the fallout from the global pandemic. Being one of the company’s oldest assets, it made sense to retire the older birds in favor of their newer and more fuel-efficient jets such as the Airbus A220.
Prior to the partial fleet grounding, Delta operated 47 MD-88s and 29 MD-90s.
[Featured Photo: formulanone/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)]
