Shrinking airlines park more planes in the desert

[marmar]

AP, via SFGate:



Shrinking airlines park more planes in the desert
By JOSHUA FREED, AP Airlines Writer

Saturday, April 4, 2009


Marana, Ariz. (AP) -- Old jets come here, empty engine pods shrink-wrapped in white, tall red tails fading to pink in the desert sun. More will come soon. Some will never fly again.

Airlines have announced plans over the past year to take 1,700 planes out of service as fewer people fly. United Airlines is retiring all 94 of its Boeing 737s by the end of this year, and Northwest Airlines has cut its old DC-9 fleet by about a third.

The number of planes in storage has jumped 29 percent in the past year to 2,302, according to aerospace data firm Ascend Worldwide. That includes 930 parked by U.S. operators alone.

Eventually, some will be sold, some scrapped, some will sit at desert facilities in southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. But at the moment, their number is growing faster than expected. The banking crisis has made it very difficult to get loans to buy aircraft, and the drop in commodity prices has gutted their scrap value.

That makes for busy times at facilities like Evergreen Maintenance Center near Marana. Its super-sized hangar fits a 747, and there are plenty of active planes on hand, including one 747 used to test Pratt & Whitney engines and another converted to fight forest fires.

But outside there's a ghost fleet of 204 parked planes. Some of Northwest's retired 747s are here. Planes from defunct ATA Airlines, 767s from Air Sahara and MaxJet, and a hodgepodge of other airlines from around the world are here, too. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/04/financial/f074555D57.DTL&type=business

[coffeenap]

1. Convert them to homes for homeless people! nt

[azmouse]

2. It's one of the more amazing sites you'll ever see...

all those planes sitting there in the desert just outside Tucson.

There is also an area near Davis-Monthan Air Force base that has row upon row of military planes just waiting to be put into service if needed. I don't know how many planes but it must be in the thousands.

[Occam Bandage]

3. DM has a striking beauty to it.