American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) has retired twenty MD-82 and MD-83 airframes as part of greater plans to remove a total of forty-five from its fleet this year.
According to the FlightRadar24 blog, the aircraft were simultaneously ferried to Roswell from airfields all over the United States, including Chicago O'Hare, Salt Lake City, Tampa International, Minneapolis St. Paul International, Raleigh/Durham, Pittsburgh International, and Dallas/Fort Worth on August 23.
On arrival at the New Mexico storage facility, the twinjets were subsequently processed and placed into storage.
American has alluded to retiring its entire fleet of McDonnell Douglas aircraft by the end of 2018. The exited capacity is being replaced by its incoming order of B737-800s and A320-200s. American expects to begin receiving its maiden B737 MAX and A320neo family aircraft in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
