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Northwest Airlines (NWA) is expediting the grounding of their aging DC-9’s.  The airline said that they would ground over a quarter of their DC-9 fleet by the end of this year.  The Minnesota based airline sent a letter to pilots last week, informing them of its intent to cut its fleet of 103 DC-9s to 68 by the end of 2008.

The DC-9’s in NWA fleet average an age of 35 years which is dragging down the entire fleet’s age.  Northwest is in talks with manufactures seeking out a replacement for the DC-9’s. 

Even with the desire to park over a quarter of the DC-9’s, Northwest will continue to expand their labor pool by increasing the available number of pilots. 

The parking of the DC-9’s come amid high fuel costs that are eating into the company’s bottom line.  The DC-9’s are just old and need to be replaced.  They are not economically viable for NWA. 

Just a little fuel to add to the merger talk’s fire, NWA might be speeding up parking the DC-9’s in anticipation of combining with Delta. 

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