If you’ve been paying any attention to what’s been going on recently then you know that American Airlines has retired most of their historic MD-80 or “Super 80” fleet. That’s correct, I said most. There’s still one American MD-80 out there that isn’t sitting in the boneyard in Roswell, New Mexico.
N9677W is the lone MD-80 that is still apart of Americans fleet. The aircraft is used for training purposes. So although it’s not used in revenue service the aircraft is still used in the American fleet. The main purpose of having N9677W apart of the fleet is to train the de-icing crews. That’s correct, it’s flying days may be done but it’s still helping out the airline one day at a time. Unfortunately for the other Maddog’s in Americans fleet they now reside in Roswell, New Mexico where they are expected to be parted out.
American Airlines flew all of their remaining “Super 80” fleet out to Roswell, New Mexico on September the 4th. That of course is excluding the two other Maddog’s that escaped the graveyard.
Photo by: Business Traveller
Two other American MD-80’s also escaped the doomed fate of the graveyard by being stored in museums. Those aircraft are currently located in Tulsa, Oklahoma awaiting their new adventure of welcoming visitors in their respective museums. Those museums are unknown to us at this time.
American’s love for the MD-80 started early. They placed what was the largest commercial aircraft order at the time for 67 MD-80 aircraft back in 1984 with an option to buy 100 more. The fleet ultimately grew tremendously when they took over Trans World Airlines aka TWA in 2001. This added 104 additional MD-80 aircraft to the fleet. At one time in 2002 American had a total of 362 “Super 80’s”. Fast forward to 2019 and they were down to 24. Those 24 aircraft excluding the three used for training and museum purposes were ferried to Roswell, New Mexico for retirement.
The final American based carrier with the aircraft is Delta airlines. The operate a wide variety of MD-80 series aircraft in their short-medium haul network. They have yet to announce a retirement date for the aircraft.
If you haven’t already, head over to our homepage and check out our article highlighting the life of the MD-80 in all it’s glory from it’s heated battle with the DC-9 to it’s eventual retirement world wide.
