The management of American Airlines may have been happy to be able to save operating costs in the future with younger aircraft. But when the airline flotted its last McDonnell Douglas MD-83s last September, it still gave the veteran Super Eighties an honorable farewell. Service periods of up to 30 years are not uncommon for a passenger airline, and many aircraft fans and employees even grow fond of the old jets.
The staff of Air Transat may also have had a close relationship with the Airbus A310. But there was no ceremony last week for the last flight of the twin-engine aircraft from the 1980s and 1990s, for good reason: Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, Air Transat decided to carry out its fleet rejuvenation in favor of the Airbus A321 LR faster than planned. Like almost every airline, Air Transat faces hard times, has to leave aircraft on the ground and cannot employ staff.
Industry prepares for downsizing
All over the world, the majority of all passenger aircraft are currently stored or parked. It is doubtful whether they will all return to service once the situation around the corona virus improves. «We have a smaller Lufthansa Group ahead of us,» Group CEO Carsten Spohr already announced.
In the picture gallery above, you can see which aircraft models have so far been taken out of service by which airlines due to the corona crisis.
The jets that face early retirement because of the Corona crisis
Airbus A340-600 from Virgin Atlantic: Most recently, the British long-haul airline used three of the four-engine aircraft. Since the beginning of March they have not carried out any passenger flights. Previously, Virgin Atlantic repeatedly postponed the withdrawal of its A340s.
Air Transat Airbus A310: The replacement by Airbus A321 LR has been fixed for a long time. Due to the corona virus, the Canadian holiday airline brought forward the retirement of its A310. The last flight took place at the end of March.
KLM's Boeing 747-400: Air France-KLM CEO Benjamin Smith is an avowed fan of the jumbo jet. But the group also had to make cuts in its fleet due to the corona crisis. KLM brought forward the phasing out of its Boeing 747-400s by one and a half years. The last flight of a KLM jumbo with passengers took place at the end of March.
Decommissioned, but not phased out: Qantas' Boeing 747-400. At the end of March a jumbo of the Australian airline brought returnees from Chile to Australia. Since then the five remaining Boeing 747s have been decommissioned. A Qantas spokesperson told aeroTELEGRAPH that the jumbos could be reactivated.
Delta Air Lines' McDonnel Douglas MD-90: Already one year ago the airline decided to bring forward the deployment of its MD-90. More details were not known. According to local media reports, Delta is currently accelerating the flotation in the wake of the Corona crisis.
Delta's McDonnell-Douglas MD-88 is also to be removed from the fleet earlier. Their retirement was already scheduled for this year. How many MD-88 and MD-90 are currently still in service cannot be said exactly. Delta plans to replace the models with Boeing 737-900 ER, Airbus A321 and A220.
Air Baltic's De Havilland Dash 8-400: The conversion to a pure Airbus A220 fleet was already a done deal for Air Baltic. Now the airline is bringing forward the phase-out of its other models. Since mid-March all Air Baltic aircraft have been standing still. Just like their twelve Dash 8-400...
...Air Baltic will also not return their Boeing 737-300 to active duty. Last year, Air Baltic planned to complete the conversion to a full A220 fleet by the autumn.
Boeing 757-200 of American Airlines: The American airline plans to out-fleet more than 150 aircraft. Some models will leave the airline completely. On the one hand, it is planned to bring forward the retirement of 34 Boeing 757s.
The 17 remaining Boeing 767-300 ERs of American Airlines will also leave the airline earlier.
All nine Airbus A330s and all 20 Embraer E190s will also be withdrawn from service with American Airlines.
Lufthansa is decommissioning all its Airbus A340-600s. They are parked in Spain. Seven are definitely being phased out, whether the others will ever come back is unclear.
Swiss pulled out their two Airbus A319s early on during the crisis.
Simeon Lüthi/aeroTELEGRAPH
