Airlines, faced with a long shutdown and a slow recovery, are not only parking their fleets, they’re discarding a significant number of older planes and keeping only the most economical operating on their limited schedules.
At Delta, with one exception, some of all of every fleet type will be parked or retired. Only the newest and most economical, the A220, will be fully spared; Delta has 31 and they are being used on routes normally flown by larger planes. For other models, 650 of 847 mainline planes will be parked with 325 already idled. The last 18 MD88s have been retired, to be followed by 27 MD90s, and possibly by 757s, 767s and CRJ-200s.
Other airlines are pursuing similar strategies; United is flying coast-to-coast routes with 737s instead of larger planes; business-class travelers are unhappy with that because the smaller planes lack lie-flat seats.
As time goes on, more shifts may happen; Delta CEO Ed Bastian told a virtual staff meeting that “Any airplane that was thought to be retried in the next five years, probably you can consider it retired this year.”
