- Sep 17, 2008
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Boeings strike,whats your thoughts on the MD80'S RUNNING OUT OF TIME ON AIRFRAMES/Layoffs put on hold ?
Boeings strike,whats your thoughts on the MD80'S RUNNING OUT OF TIME ON AIRFRAMES/Layoffs put on hold ?
I may be stupid here, but I've seen a lot more of American's MD-80's doing medium-haul flights than in the past.
In Los Angeles, the MD-80's are always doing LAX-DFW and a lot of other longer routes as well. In San Diego, the MD-80 is almost all you fly out of there headed east, all the way to the plane's range limit. They're even doing LAX-ORD and LAX-STL on an MD-80...and several a day.
I think they're putting them on longer-haul flights to mitigate those problems, but that seems to be a trend among all the carriers and not just American. Continental is flying their 737-300's and 737-500's on longer flights and the 737-800s and 900s are doing more shorter haul, unless it's necessary for range or what not. I took a Continental 737-300 to Grand Cayman on a LAX-IAH-GCM run recently and that's across the Gulf of Mexico below Cuba, over three hours.
As mentioned above, the MD-80s returned to these longer routes in 2003, not recently and not because AA wanted to limit the MD-80's cycles.