U.S. Airline Fleets: Dingy, Dusty and Growing Old Fast
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 10.29.07 | 7:27 AM ET
Unfortunately for U.S. travelers, the fleets aren’t going to get any less dingy or more inviting anytime soon. None of the new Airbus A380s on order, and only 43 of the 710 Boeing 787s on the way, are destined for U.S. carriers, according to a New York Times report. Instead, major U.S. airlines are sticking with their graying fleets, with planes an average of more than 12 years old.
Airlines could buy more new planes, but they’re spending their money to pay down debt and build a financial cushion, reports the Times. Safety isn’t an issue. The fleets, the Times reports, are well maintained.
So until regulations are changed to allow foreign carriers with all their beautiful new planes to operate routes within the U.S., or until the U.S. carriers decide to upgrade, we’re all stuck with planes that, in the words of one traveler the Times spoke to, feel like tuna cans.
Related on World Hum:
* Bill Maher on the Airbus A380: ‘I Don’t Want to Fly on a Bus’
* The Freakonomics Quorum on Air Travel
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Karen Reinbold 10.29.07 | 9:37 PM ET
You don’t mention the airlines that are not in debt, like AirTran Airways, Frontier or Southwest. These airlines fly to all the lower 48 states and beyond. Maybe if the papers and travel experts played theses airlines up the ‘big airlines’ would clean up there act.
Richie 10.31.07 | 11:55 AM ET
JetBlue has over a hundred planes. None of them are older than 8 years old, and the airline flies domestically and to the Caribbean. I’m assuming this article is primarily about the large legacy airlines: Delta, United, American and especially Northwest.
Michael Yessis 10.31.07 | 2:58 PM ET
Indeed, this story is primarily about the legacy airlines, though the statistic regarding the overall age of the U.S. airline fleet is based on the nine major U.S. airlines as defined by the aviation research firm Airline Monitor. Unfortunately, the Times story doesn’t list what those nine carriers are, and the info on the Airline Monitor site is behind a subscription wall.