readywhenyouare

Yeah that is a shame. I would have thought the employee flight would be the flight to VCV. That's what Delta did with the L-1011. It would be nice to allow as many passengers as possible to say goodbye to the 747. I hope those who are PMDL customers like me will refrain from bidding to allow those who are PMNW to enjoy the experience. The 747 means a lot more to them.

flying_gibbon

Off topic, but after an unsuccessful search, can you remind me what the final MD-88 route is?

readywhenyouare

That fleet isn't scheduled for retirement. We just know it is somewhere around 2020-2021. But I would imagine something like DFW-CVG-ATL would be the retirement route if Delta chooses to do anything. More than likely they will just set it out on the curb on trash day.

flying_gibbon

Haha! Ahh, I didn't think it was anytime "soon." Thanks!

Zorak

I would gladly take part in a CR2 retirement flight @:-)

Especially if they let us do an Office Space on it afterward.

The Situation

Yes, quite sad that DL chooses to treat their employees well and provide them a nice benefit for their service and sacrifice to the company

readywhenyouare

I suggest you review the L-1011 and 767-200 retirements. There was ample opportunity for both customers and employees to take part in the retirement flights. This 747 retirement is highly irregular.

lov2fly

I was thinking the same thing.... while it’s Delta’s party and they can do whatever they want, however they want, - I’m not sure I would want to win one of the auction spots.

If there’s 350 seats per flight and only 5 pair will go to the general public that’s kind of like crashing the company party. I would expect lots of discussions and conversations about past company experiences that the 10 winners were not a part of.

I took my last 747 ride in September and it was a great goodbye flight. For me, I don’t think these party flights would measure up to the great memories I already have. My only regret is that I didn’t take more photos.

The cynic in me also speculates that between the 30 passengers Delta will probably clear more than 10,000,000 Skymiles off the books. At that valuation, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the number of spaces doubled later and additional outside passengers were added. (Of course the explanation would be “due to the tremendous demand for the experiences offered and in order to benefit Delta’s loyal Skymiles members...”).

Again total speculation on my part but you’ve heard it here first.

JHIN

Great news sadly I dint have Delta miles.

Who knows a Delta employee I can speak with to help get me a seat?

gooselee

... You've lost me there, bud.

DLDiamond2013

Me, too. And the 757. Would do some final rides on them as well when their days come. Loved the 717 since my first flight on one of them many years ago with HA inter-island.

PurdueFlyer

I've done a retirement flight to the boneyard at Marana before, on the 747 in fact. There were about 20 of us on the upper deck. These airplanes are being return to the lessor, and they must be returned in a certain condition. Except for safety cards, the rest of the airplane was almost totally stripped down on the inside. No magazines, No food, no drinks, no IFE, lavatories drained and locked out (except for 1 on the UD as I recall). Then, at Marana, we basically had to climb down on some rickety ladder directly onto the tarmac. The pilots told us that on previous trips there, the ground handler drove a beltloader up to door 2L, and the pilots had to climb out onto the belt loader and were lowered to the ground on that. Except for a few metal hangars there really aren't any facilities there, no public transportation. TUS airport is 30 miles away. Also from a security perspective, you aren't allowed to take pictures at the site as most of the lessors are rather particular about their property being photographed / documented as being "there." The experience was unique but almost anti-climactic given the relatively uneventful flight, and basically having to leave the property as soon as we landed.

I respect that some will be disappointed with how the finale flights are being carried out, but there's really no way to safely and securely transport 376 people on a one-way ticket to the middle of the Arizona desert, have a soiree in a hangar, and get them back out on scheduled service.

On the balance, you can add one more name to the MD-88 retirement flight. Maybe marketing can go ahead and put that auction online while we're at it, since the interest definitely seems to be there Can I reserve seat 2D?

SFOFlyer2

Is the website working for anyone? I keep getting an error cannot find server ..

355F1

Since I probably won't be able to afford to bid on this with the paltry amount of Skymiles I currently have (250,000ish), I decided to do the next best thing....

Only costs $190 per night, and I have a mileage run to ARN coming up in Jan!


​​​​​​https://www.jumbostay.com/

mersk862

Sign me up for 3D then! (I'd rather kick your seat for the last flight rather than indufan...though that could be fun as well )