Delta Air Lines takes delivery of the first A350 in North America

Delta Air Lines (US) has taken delivery of it's first Airbus A350 (MSN 115 N501DN), which also becomes the first A350 to be delivered to a North American airline. The aircraft will remain in Toulouse until early August for installation of Gogo's 2Ku wifi. Service entry is expected October 30th between Detroit and Tokyo Narita. Delta has an additional 24 A350s on order, with the aircraft replacing the airline's remaining seven 747-400s.

Airbus has now delivered 95 A350s to Asiana Airlines (1), China Air Lines (6), Cathay Pacific (17), Delta (1), Lufthansa (3), Ethiopian (5), Finnair (10), French Blue (1), Air Caraibes (2), Vietnam Airlines (7), LATAM Brasil (7), Qatar Airways (15), Singapore Airlines (15), Thai International (5)

Airbus A350-941 MSN 115 Delta Air Lines N501DN [test registration F-WZGP]

MD-90 Fleet Update

Delta Air Lines recently retired it's first Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) MD-90 (MSN 53382/2094 N902DA) at Blytheville, AR, ahead of it's plans to also retire MD-80s over the next three years, in favor of A321s and 737-900ERs.

Just 116 MD-90-30s were delivered between February 24th 1995 (Delta N902DA as detailed above) and October 23rd 2000 (Saudia HZ-AP3 msn 53518/2289).

New aircraft were delivered to:

Air Aruba 2
AMC Airlines 1
China Northern Airlines 13
China Eastern Airlines 9
Delta Air Lines 16
EVA Air 3
Great China Airlines 1 (LF UNI Air)
Japan Air System 16
KTHY - Cyprus Turkish Airlines 2
Ascerca Airlines 1 (LF Air Aruba)
Reno Air 5
SAS 8
Saudia 29
UNI Air 10

Of the 116 aircraft delivered, 3 have been written off, 43 have been permanently withdrawn from use, 7 are stored, while 64 remain in service.

The entire in service fleet of 64 are all operated by Delta Air Lines. Despite receiving only 16 new aircraft, Delta has acquired the remainder of it's fleet on the used market. Several examples were acquired for spare parts only.

Classic Corner

Delta 737-200 N313DL

A classic...seen at San Diego, CA Sep 23rd 1985. Logged by me twice - both times at Fort Lauderdale, FL Jun 9th 1999 and Jun 14th 2001 (I must have been on business trips...who voluntarily goes to Florida in June!) operating as Delta Express at that time. A simple history...delivered Mar 14th 1984, and a late build 737-200, as 737-300s started delivering later that year from Nov 28th (US Airways) and Nov 30th (Southwest). 737-200s in fact continued being delivered new in diminishing numbers until mid 1988, at that time -200s, -300s and -400s were all on the Renton production line at the same time. N313DL was removed from service & stored at Victorville, CA Sep 2005...and subsequently broken up

Delivery color scheme

N313DL skipped DL's Interim color scheme, adopting this early 2000s livery

Finally modified to operate as Delta Express