Delta Air Lines announced Tuesday that it will retire its remaining Douglas DC-9 aircraft following Flight 2014 scheduled to depart Minneapolis/St. Paul for Atlanta on Jan. 6 at 4:20 p.m. CST.
The flight will be the final scheduled commercial flight of the DC-9 by a major U.S. airline, the company said in a news release.
Since 2008, Delta, which operates a hub in Salt Lake City, has removed or retired more than 350 aircraft from its fleet including 50-seat CRJ-200s; Saab 340s and DC-9s. The company has replaced them with economically efficient aircraft such as the Boeing 777-200LR; two-class, 65 and 76-seat regional jets and variants of the 737 and 717.
The DC-9 retirement comes just months after Delta began taking delivery of 88 Boeing 717-200 aircraft and 100 Boeing 737-900ER aircraft, which began entering service in October and November, respectively, the release said.
To acknowledge the DC-9's retirement, the last flight has been tagged DL2014 noting the final year of service, Delta said. The preceding flight operating from Detroit to Minneapolis/St. Paul will be flight DL1965, the aircraft's initial year of service.