Programs: NW Plat 00-Sep09, DL PlatM Oct09-11, DL Lifetime Silver, UA Premier 09-11
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More DC9's in NW fleet?
Someone at airlines.net had posted recently that Northwest had purchased, or perhaps leased, some of Airtran's remaining DC9. While this might be old news, and it probably is already flying Northwest flights, I couldn't believe it. True, Northwest is betting another 10 years of flying out of DC9's, but I didn't expect them to be purchasing or leasing more.
Is this the Northwest's strategy of replacing the older DC9....with more DC9's?... or are they adding them to the fleet to replace ARJ?
IP would have been helpful, but is there anyway to tell whether you are flying those new aircrafts from Airtran?
I could be way wrong, but I would be very surprised if that's correct. The DC9 fleet has shrunk by about 5-18 planes (172 to ~ 166 in World Traveler or 156 here http://ir.nwa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=111021&p=irol-fleet )in recent years. They would have had to retire several of their planes and brought on some of Air Tran's, which I doubt has happened, especially since NW still has 8 DC9-10's which are the oldest and would have been the first to go. I couldn't gleam any info from Air Tran's web site, but they indicate they "retired" their DC9's and took a hit on depreciation so it doesn't sound like they sold them.
One possible scenario is that NW bought the DC9's from Air Tran to use them for spares and parts, not unlike the 747-300 they bought from Swiss Air for the engines.
Programs: WN CP & A-List, US GP, DL SM, UA 3P, HH Dia, Hyatt Dia, SPG Gold, Hertz 5*
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Quote:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bergamini: they indicate they "retired" their DC9's and took a hit on depreciation so it doesn't sound like they sold them.</font>
That does not really prove they were not sold, they would have had to take a hit on the depreciation if the price the received was less than the price on their books. Chances are the planes were definitely sold to someone, either to be used or scrapped, there's little chance of those planes returning to service if they weren't sold outright to someone already (unlike more modern types that have been retired by some airlines recently).
I looked at a couple of web sites with commercial aircraft listings (but none I saw was current after February 2003). They showed AirTran was scrapping or donating to museums virtually all of its last bunch of DC-9s as of then; there were 20 in service at that time. I could not find a single DC-9 transferred with a former "AT" aircraft registration to another airline.
The large majority of NW's DC-9s are their's, and ex-Eastern. The heritage of their world's-largest DC-9 fleet was closely tied to Atlanta, home to both the Southern Airways fleet of DC-9's that merged in via Republic, and Eastern, which had Atlanta as its major hub. The ex-Southern maintenance base was NW's major DC-9 maintenance base until its closing in early 2003. Large numbers of NW's mechanics at that base came from Eastern, eventually with the planes as well, after its closing in the early 1990s.
First, don't believe about 95% of the crap that is slung on that embarasment of an aviation website called airliners.net.
Second, the avro is not being retired. NW is just pondering the idea.
Third, just got back last night from Lake CIty, FL (where mesaba has decided to farm their heavy mx work out to save money, though it's costing them more) and there is a LARGE fleet of Air Tran DC9s parked, with no engines. Doubtful NW is bying these.
Interesting azj....didn't I just read in the MSP paper via USA Today that Mesaba parked 3 -5 Avro's this month, and the contract for the jets may not be renewed?
I hope you are correct its the best RJ out there!!!
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Justin026: I looked at a couple of web sites with commercial aircraft listings (but none I saw was current after February 2003). They showed AirTran was scrapping or donating to museums virtually all of its last bunch of DC-9s as of then; there were 20 in service at that time. I could not find a single DC-9 transferred with a former "AT" aircraft registration to another airline.
The large majority of NW's DC-9s are their's, and ex-Eastern. The heritage of their world's-largest DC-9 fleet was closely tied to Atlanta, home to both the Southern Airways fleet of DC-9's that merged in via Republic, and Eastern, which had Atlanta as its major hub. The ex-Southern maintenance base was NW's major DC-9 maintenance base until its closing in early 2003. Large numbers of NW's mechanics at that base came from Eastern, eventually with the planes as well, after its closing in the early 1990s.</font>
I always thought that the Atlanta Maintenance base seemed to be an oddball base, now I know why and how they got it. Thanks.
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I only put this here so it isn't blank.
YOu did read correctly... Mesaba had the bright idea to voluntarily park 5 revenue producing aircraft between Dec and Jan. The fate of the rest of the fleet will be determined by Feb 29.
Programs: NW Plat 00-Sep09, DL PlatM Oct09-11, DL Lifetime Silver, UA Premier 09-11
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Whew. After going through the ownership information at airlinerlist.com, there seem no evidence that Airtran's DC9 aircrafts were purchased by Northwest.
With DC9 maintaintance located previously in Atlanta, however, I wonder if there was ever a consideration though in purchasing DC9 fleet from Airtran??
It's possible that NW purchased the engines from Airtran for spares, and not the airframes. I remember last year NWA did something similar with some United aircraft....purchased engines from UAL aircraft headed to the desert.
YOu did read correctly... Mesaba had the bright idea to voluntarily park 5 revenue producing aircraft between Dec and Jan. The fate of the rest of the fleet will be determined by Feb 29.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Is this the Northwest's strategy of replacing the older DC9....with more DC9's? </font>
I hope not. In either case, not sure why they would buy/lease more DC9's when they have 10 of them parked here (see picture). http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.cgi?158104
Couldn't they use those planes for parts.
Oh yeah, this picture also shows 10 other NWA planes parked, besides the 10 DC9's.
[This message has been edited by travelnick (edited Jan 02, 2004).]
The ones that I saw in that picture were very far away, but I did see that they had 2 exit doors in the center, so they would definitely not be DC9-10's then. I was surprised to see they are parking a B757.
Where is IP when we need him?
[This message has been edited by bergamini (edited Jan 02, 2004).]
