Is the DC-9 phaseout being accelerated?
 

I was reading Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the sky, and as part of his article discussing the pending layoff of 600 Mechanics at MSP, he mentions the phase out of the remaining 30 DC-9's. I know first of all that there are 150+ the fleet and I was under the impression that there are a few more years left in them. So do we still have the Douglas name in our flying future?

The older & smaller DC9's are slowly being taken offline and replaced with CRJ's... I think the last DC9-10 was decommissioned in the last year.

Bad news, unless they buy some of those newer CRJ's with a FC section. FC is one of the reasons I landed on NW out of CMH - so many others use a lot of CRJ's.

Oh No, replacing DC-9's with CRJ's - I guess that will mean losing my first class seats for my many regular flights of CMH-DTW. :(

I don't know if any versions of the DC-9 are being phased out but would like to certainly know, since its phase old will adversely affect passenger comfort. How many DC-9s of all versions are in the NW fleet? Does NW really plan to replace some of the versions with CRJs?

As other DC-9s are phased out it will mean that there will be less elite first-class upgrades because the DC-9s have such a high percentage of first class seats relative to coach.

It is a great plane that NW did not originally operate but acquired through the merger with Republic. It is so quiet up front, and with 2-3 seating in coach, there are fewer middle seats. The person in the middle seat always seems to be leaning on at least one of the persons next to them, and this is less of a problem on the DC-9 because there are less middle seats per row. The CRJ has no middle seat, but usually has no first class.

I think that NW is attracting many frequent travelers from other carriers because of its generous first class upgrades, the loss of DC-9s will begin to cut into this competitive advantage.

If you look at NW's web site you will see that they are flying DC9-30's, 40's and 50's.

http://www.nwa.com/travel/trave/seatm/

The investor relation's site still lists 3 DC9-10's.

http://ir.nwa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=111021&p=irol-fleet

The retirement of these 30 DC-9's should not adversely impact the current schedule. Included in the 30 are about 6-8 aircraft that are currently in storage, thus they will now be retired.

NW is taking a delivery of a few A319's/A320's this year which will help offset the lost of some DC-9's.

Increased utilization of the current fleet will make up the bulk of the difference of the retired DC-9's. The DC-9 fleet utilization has been rather low with several aircraft being used as spares. Avro utilization will also be increased. The 30 DC-9's are not all being retired at once; they will be retired as they come due for heavy maintenance. Most of this will occur after the busy summer travel season, which coincides with annual reduction in capacity going into the fall/winter months.

This scares me -- the DC-9s already have short turn-around times. Last week, a DC-9 was 50 minutes late inbound to LAN, and we left 45 minutes late, so virtually no time was made up. Thus, once one flight is late during the day, the tight turn-around times mean that all later flights used by that aircraft will also be delayed (a domino effect). I missed my connection and had to wait in DTW for an extra 2.5 hours until the next flight.

Doesn't increased aircraft utilization lead to more delayed flights and thus more missed connecting flights? It's could especially be a problem with high load factors, when a later flight might already be full.

I believe that it is the rest of the fleet that will have to performed at faster turn-around times: A319/320, CRJ, ARJ and the remaining DC9.

This works for Southwest!

It is actually remarkable what a small improvement in turn-around time can do for the fleet as a whole.

mixed retirement of DC-9's
 

Currently,the 30 that are being retired are DC-9-30's, the oldest the NW has. NW had been drawing down the -40 series as well. With 130+ DC-9's in the fleet, it will take a while to retire all of them, but keep in mind, some of the planes are not as old as you think....most were built bewteen 1968 and 1980. To illustrate the fact of how well planges age, some of the 757-5500 series were built in 1985, and they look older on the inside! NW spent buko $$$on refurbishing the -9's, AND they are PAID FOR! How many airlines can say that 1/3 of their fleet is paid for? NONE!

Anyway, NW is looking at many replacements for the DC-9...such as the ERJ-175 and -195 series, A318, and so on. While some may be RJ's, they have better range, with similar capacity, and are 30-40% more fuel efficient than a 737-500!

Dont get me wrong..I love Boeing jets! But I also believe in a strong business model that keeps a company alive!

With the advent of the A330's and now the 787, we can go to a very commanalized fleet of twin engines aircraft. (The 787 can have a range of 8,500+km!!!) Doing this saves $ in fuel, training costs, replacement costs, and so on!

Watch NW, thy are going to be one of, if not the only, legacy carrier to make it in these tough economic times!

NWstew72

Only on the Northwest board can one say 'the plane's not that old - it's only 25 years old.'

I've written this at least ten times, but here I go again:

-- NW’s CRJ have predominately replaced turboprops & opened up new routes. There are VERY FEW examples in which the CRJ have replaced mainline aircraft, and virtually all of those flights were lightly traveled. In other words, as much as people complain about the CRJ operating the early-morning MSP-IAH flight, look at the alternative that NW implanted on the early-morning DTW-IAH flight three years ago: it disappeared.

-- Since 9/11, NW has taken delivery of more domestic mainline aircraft than it has retired… yet the number of mainline flights has decreased significantly. The 30 aircraft being retired are simply not needed, and haven’t been needed for quite some time. It simply makes better business sense to increase the utilization of the aircraft, rather than pumping maintenance money into excess aircraft (including rotating some in-and-out of the desert).

The significance of the premature DC-9 retirements is that NW doesn’t foresee a recovery in their ASM anytime soon (to/from markets served pre-9/11). Given CO’s aggressive intercontinental expansion, and expedited aircraft (including the ex-TZ aircraft) delivery, it also means NW will likely fall behind AF-KL and CO and become the world’s sixth largest airline. It does not mean NW’s whoring itself out with CRJ (although CRJ will be a big part of its so-called Shreveport-to-Shanghai strategy).

<<<<<<I've written this at least ten times, but here I go again...

It was worth it again. Thanks again!!!



(Shreveport to Shanghai :D )

Of course the one example would be my regular route BOS-MEM that was changed from a A320 to a CRJ......

However, there's no airplane I'd rather fly out of BOS in a driving blizzard than a DC9 (seriously). CRJs get cancelled, and 757s rock like a sailboat in the wind. The only downfall of the DC9 is the weight restrictions and smaller F seats.

TYS used to get some mainline service and is now all Pinnacle CRJ.