Desert Solitaire: Inside an ‘Airplane Graveyard’

Travel Blog  •  Rob Verger  •  04.08.09 | 12:54 PM ET

Photo by PhillipC, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

A sign that the airline industry is struggling in the poor economy: airlines are putting more planes into storage. “The number of planes in storage has jumped 29% in the past year to 2,302,” the AP reports.

Both this week’s AP story and a February 2006 New York Times story by Joe Sharkey take readers inside the Evergreen Maintenance Center in Arizona, with vivid descriptions of the rows of planes parked in the desert. Each article uses the word “ghost” or “ghosts” to describe the feeling of the motionless planes.

But both stories also quickly point out that these are not places where airplanes just go to die. “The people who run these facilities chafe at the idea that they’re groundskeepers in a graveyard,” the AP story notes. “While Evergreen scraps roughly 15 planes a year, most of the stored planes still get checks, extensive record-keeping and federally mandated maintenance that will let them return to service if travel demand and the price of jet fuel cooperate in the future.”

Let’s hope that they do.


Rob Verger

Rob Verger is a frequent contributor to World Hum and the site's former air travel blogger. His articles and photographs have appeared in the Boston Globe and other publications, and he's a former undergraduate writing instructor at Columbia University. If you like, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or follow him on Twitter.


2 Comments for Desert Solitaire: Inside an ‘Airplane Graveyard’

pam 04.08.09 | 10:26 PM ET

The airplane boneyard near Tucson is one of the weirdest sites I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing from a window seat. I was also pretty much gobstruck when we drove past the grounds where there are dozens of helicopters in phases of deconstruction, fighter jets still in the wrapper, and all kinds of crazy flying machines in varied states. I never gave much thought to the implication of WHY they were there, so I appreciate the context.

Ares Vista 05.18.09 | 4:02 PM ET

I have seen the ‘airplane boneyard’ from the air, and it is indeed an interesting sight. It’s a shame that the airlines are having such a hard time right now, as the entire industry will have to fight hard to survive.

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