jrl767

GRK is Ft Hood, Killeen TX; RIV is March Air Reserve Base, Riverside CA (lots of USAF TPAC flights originating there)

EVA777

Thanks. Makes sense now.

meh130

I read a post on Facebook which said DL plans to start returning MD-90s from storage to the fleet in 2020.

N515CR

9245 heads to BYH today: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n945dn
954 set to retire tomorrow: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n954dl

LoganFlyer

951 ferried to SBD last Monday (18-Feb):

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N951DL

tnair1974

horseymike

help me out here. what are the basic differences between a MD-88 and a MD-90 ?
I am curious. They always seemed pretty similar to me. I know there are people on this forum who know the differences.
Thanks,
Mike

strickerj

MCO Flyer

3Cforme

The MD-90s have less ancient avionics. Delta pulled the MD-88s out of LaGuardia to comply with federal rules on more efficient GPS-based routes.

3Cforme

Thanks for that contribution. A fleet of 25 is surely a sharp drop from 65. IMHO, it will be easy to rationalize going from 25 right to zero if DL has any surplus narrowbody capacity, say, in an economic downturn. Let's see how many come back. If planespotters.net is correct, they've parked 26 - and none of those has returned to service.

tnair1974

To expand somewhat on the other good replies, the MD-88 is actually part of the MD-80 family (MD-"80" is more of a generic name) which is made up of the MD-81, MD-82, MD-83, MD-87 and MD-88. Except for the MD-87 which has a shorter fuselage (more like a DC-9), the MD-80s have the same basic fuselage length. All MD-80s are powered by slightly different variants of the same basic JT8D-200 family of engines. UPDATE: Turns out that originally MD-80s continued to be called DC-9s... more to the point they were the DC-9-80 family. While the DC-9-80 family entered service in 1980, the name was switched to the MD-80 family a short time later. However, early MD-81s and MD-82s (maybe MD-83s?) had DC-9-81/DC-9-82/etc stamped on their serial plates.

I only know a fraction of the other differences between the various MD-80s, but they have different fuel capacities and slightly different engine thrust levels among a few other things. American Airlines was by far the biggest MD-80 customer, ordering the MD-82 and MD-83 (IIRC, the MD-83 has bigger fuel capacity than the MD-82). Delta and a few other carriers like Iberia ordered the later MD-88 which has a revised cockpit compared to other MD-80s.

A pilot friend of mine says that ATC and pilots usually refer to an MD-80 rather than an MD-82, MD-83, etc for simplicity sake.

The MD-90 appeared roughly 15 years after the MD-80 family. As others have touched on, the MD-90 uses a newer generation of engines (V2500) that consume less fuel and emit less smoke than the MD-80s. Interesting tid bit is that the MD-90 is for at least one reason necessarily longer than the MD-80s (not just for increased capacity) as the V2500 engines weigh more than the JT8D-200s so the MD-90's stretched forward fuselage solves weight and balance issues.

The MD-80 series was a very good success both performance wise and in sales (over a thousand being built). The MD-90 was a big sales flop, partly because of performance shortcomings. Delta ended up buying only a small fraction of the MD-90s they ordered and later turned to the Boeing 737NG.

tnair1974

Good point. I was not aware of this until recently. I had previously heard that residents around LGA were tired of the loud MD-80s . While this would be understandable, there apparently was a lot more to this story.

As a footnote, Delta is equipping a small batch of what is anticipated to be their last MD-88s with updated avionics to comply with ADS-B navigation requirements needed for most flying after the end of this year. So technically, DL perhaps could fly an MD-88 with ADS-B into LGA. But I suspect that for competitive reasons, Delta's newer plane types with more modern cabins will continue LGA flying. A backup MD-88 could be used if nothing else is available.

Dawgfan6291

this is part of the reason.

The FMS on the 88s didn't have the storage space to continue to fly out of LGA because of all the airports/points etc that had to be stored in the FMS. This is why they have centralized the fleet in Atlanta.

The updated cockpits were going to fix this but obviously that didn't happen. IIRC the MD90s got a new FMS to fix the issues with space on those birds.

AeRoSpaceman

Nice number of posts within a two day period on this thread! It's usually one or two a month. Love this thread and the birds!

EDIT: Great information too. Thanks to all!