Originally Posted by sailingfun

I agree, they would not Park them and give up Market share. They will however replace them. The big question is who flies the replacement aircraft. A DC-9 flying 4 legs a day could easily use 5000 gallons of fuel a day on short legs. Longer legs even more. Thats 150,000 gallons a month or about $500,000 in fuel a month plus the higher maintenance costs of a old aircraft. A EMB-195 burns almost half the fuel and can be leased for about 70,000 a month. Pretty easy to do the math. Delta parked 54 737-200's that were built in the mid eighties because they were not profitable at 1.75 a gallon jet fuel. The question is not if the DC-9's are leaving but who would fly the replacement aircraft. The required inspections for aircraft that old are also very expensive. Delta parked the last of their DC-9's because of those inspections.