Delta: Final DC-9 flight will be Jan. 6

Ben Mutzabaugh | USA TODAY

Delta Air Lines' last DC-9 flight will come Jan. 6, the carrier announced this week.

That flight will depart Minneapolis/St. Paul at 4:20 p.m. on Jan. 6 before arriving in Atlanta a little before 7 p.m.

To acknowledge the DC-9's retirement, the last flight has been tagged DL2014 – noting the final year of service for the aircraft. The preceding flight on that aircraft – operating from Detroit to Minneapolis/St. Paul – will be flight DL1965, with that number denoting the aircraft's initial year of service.

Delta says it will be the last scheduled commercial flight of the DC-9 by a major U.S. airline.

"The DC-9 has been a workhorse in our domestic fleet while providing a reliable customer experience," Nat Pieper, Delta's VP – Fleet Strategy, says in a statement. "The aircraft's retirement paves the way for newer, more efficient aircraft."

Delta was the launch customer for the original 65-seat version of the DC-9 in 1965, when the airline began to replace propeller aircraft on its high-frequency, short-haul domestic routes. DC-9s had exited Delta's fleet by 1993, but returned as Delta inherited the DC-9s in Northwest's fleet when those carriers merged in 2008. Northwest's DC-9s come from that airline's acquisition of Republic Airlines in 1986.

Delta says it has flown a total of 305 DC-9s since 1965.

In announcing the retirement of its last DC-9 jets, Delta notes it has removed or retired more than 350 aircraft from its fleet since 2008. Among the aircraft being phased out of Delta's fleet: 50-seat CRJ-200s; Saab 340s and – now – the DC-9s.

Delta says it has replaced much of the flying on those aircraft types by "adding economically efficient, proven-technology aircraft such as the Boeing 777-200LR; two-class, 65 and 76-seat regional jets and variants of the 737 and 717, largely on a capacity-neutral basis."

Delta also has an order for 30 Airbus A321 jets, which are scheduled to begin arriving at the airline in 2016.