American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) will have retired its entire McDonnell Douglas fleet by the end of 2017 an airline filing with the SEC has shown. The carrier began phasing out the fleet in 2010 reducing it from 220 jets to the current 135 (seventy-one MD-82s and sixty-four MD-83s).
By the end of this year, the MD-8X fleet will have been reduced to 96, then 60 next year, before reaching 34 in 2017. The MD-82s average 25.5 years of age while the MD-83s average nearly 20 with both either acquired directly from McDonnell Douglas or acquired from the now defunct TWA - Trans World Airlines (St. Louis Lambert International).
American is replacing the type with newer B737-800s of which it currently has 249.
