Bren McDonell

We’re down to just 10 MD-90s left

A321neo

I understand that the MD88s are toast.

Do we know for sure that the MD90s are gonna be permanently retired?

melissaru

I'm scheduled on an MD-88 May 27, ATL-PHL. Think there is a change of an aircraft change?

Andrew Baker

I would say almost 100% yes. We’re flying more and more into the desert every day now. There’s a good chance you’ll be flying on a 739.

JedThePilot

Does anyone know by chance what month the MD-88’s might be retired by? My heart is set on flying on one but because of the virus I’m getting anxious that it might not happen. Any little bit of information helps!

cmd320

How unfortunate.

mersk862

MD-90s are done as of Wednesday. There's 10 planes left and 10 lines of flight scheduled for Wednesday, all ending in ATL.

MD-88s have 30 lines of flights built out through the April schedule, 29 of which look to be full day use from when I looked at the schedules (the 30th line appears to do a turn in the afternoon somewhere). No idea what the thought is on pulling those out come May.

SSF556

I am scheduled on a MD90 GSP to ATL on May 5th.....fingers crossed

mersk862

Not happening on an MD-90. They're all done as of tomorrow.

May schedule is not yet loaded. The April changes that were loaded this past weekend were for travel through May 1. Given the size of the changes (which probably was historic in scope for one weekend's load), they're probably going to load the May changes this weekend.

GSP-ATL for the April schedule is 5x/day 717. I'd expect something similar for May; maybe a frequency cut or an upgauge on a flight or two to an -88, but you won't be on an MD-90.

MCO Flyer

Will any of the MD-90s potentially return to service? The original plan before COVID-19 didn’t call for them all to be retired until 2022. I find it strange that DL wants all of the MD-90s gone before the MD-88s.

mersk862

I doubt it. It's a very niche fleet that's become expensive to maintain - there's only one shop on the planet that overhauls the version of the engine on the MD-90 - and they're all the way out in New Zealand. Not to mention that I don't see any airline returning to peak 2019 levels of service until 2021 at the earliest - by that time, it'd be easier to simply park them than maintain a 10-plane orphan subfleet - that way there's no need to spend money on training and maintaining such a small subfleet when potential replacements on order (A220-100/300, A321ceo/neo) already have a substantial mass.

SJC ORD LDR

I'm surprised the -90s were dumped before the -88s. Aren't the -90s cheaper to operate than the -88s?

MCO Flyer

I realized that the MD-90 seats 158 pax which requires 4 FAs, while the MD-88 only seats 149 and only requires 3 FAs. With loads being so low right now and there only being one remaining MD-90 engine shop, I can see why DL decided to dump the -90 first.

nystateofmind

Over the stage lengths that they operate I am not sure the fuel savings are really enough to mitigate the lack of technical support, extra Flight Attendant, etc. Not to mention we don’t know which planes are due for maintenance checks in the near future. If a number of MD-90’s were due it would be easier to retire than keep a small fleet of “orphan” aircraft especially when they need to decrease fleet size.

tnair1974

Indeed, DL previously had a large number of stored MD-90s but with contingency plans to return them to service. Other than maybe needing heavy checks and having a few items removed (like engines) to use on active MD-90s, these stored planes were otherwise preserved.

However, DL then decided about a year ago that it was more pragmatic to permanently retire most of these grounded MD-90s, even taking a tax write off in the process. In fact, a few MD-88s had their own retirements postponed to cover for these suddenly retired MD-90s. I think this all this info was posted a year ago on this thread.

While this is now moot, does anybody know if DL had already stopped overhauling MD-90 engines in New Zealand? Did DL already have enough existing engine time to use on their active MD-90s through the previously planned 2023 retirement date?