FWIW, the 1998 count of DC-9s, which was probably at or near the peak:

DC-9-10: 16
DC-9-30: 116
DC-9-40: 12
DC-9-50: 35
MD-80: 8

187 DC-9 variants in service.

To think that a paltry number of MD-90s, that don't even match the mission spec (to use my DAL brothers preferred terminology), is any kind of replacement for this segment of the flying is just spin.

While I agree that any airframes at the mainline is a good thing, all this does is move the bar of scope recapture FURTHER from our goal.

Nu