Aircraft Fleets and Types Retired During Covid-19

The Covid-19 outbreak has been the instigator for many of the world’s airlines to bring forward retirements of aircraft types within their fleets.

As demand for air travel disintegrated, airlines have been forced to remove any unnecessary costs whilst trimming their fleet size. Naturally the first to go have been the older aircraft that guzzled fuel and were more expensive to run.

Enthusiasts have lamented the loss of so many types, with the Boeing 747 in particular hit pretty hard.

Others were expected – older generation jets like the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series were finally retired from Delta and many US airlines fast-tracked retirement of Boeing 757s and 767s as newer Airbus and Boeing models were cheaper to run and more comfortable for passengers.

And the panic is not over yet, with many countries still suffering from lockdowns, and airlines struggling to keep running with low demand for air travel.

Here’s a list of all the know aircraft retirements experienced (so far) as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. I’m sure there will be more to come:

Air Canada/Air Canada Rouge – Boeing 767-300

Air France – Airbus A380

Air Transat – Airbus A310

Alaska Airlines – Airbus A319

American Airlines – Boeing 757, 767-300

Austrian Airlines – Dash 8 Q400 (forthcoming)

British Airways – Airbus A318, Boeing 747

Corsair – Boeing 747-400

Photo (c) Chris Hobson

Delta – Boeing 777 (forthcoming), McDonnell Douglas MD-88 & MD-90

Iberia – Airbus A340-600

By ERIC SALARD from PARIS, FRANCE (EC-JNQ LAX) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

KLM – Boeing 747-400

Qantas – Boeing 747-400

United Airlines – Boeing 757, 767 (forthcoming)

Virgin Atlantic – Airbus A340-600, Boeing 747-400

Have we missed any? Let us know in the comments below.