September 4 was the last flight out of Wichita on American Airlines’ MD-80 aircraft. Employees waved a fond farewell as the Airport Police & Fire officers gave a final water cannon salute. American started using the McDonnell-Douglas aircraft, sometimes called Mad Dogs or silver bullets, in Wichita in September 2003 but they have come and gone as American changed equipment. You may remember when TWA flew the MD-80s to St. Louis from Wichita. American purchased TWA in April 2001 and combined fleets. Eventually American discontinued that route.
American will now fly a mix of Airbus 319s and CRJ900s to Dallas/Fort Worth. The Airbus 319 has 128 seats compared to the 140-seat MD-80s. The CRJ900s have 84 seats. However, Q4 2019 capacity to DFW will have 7,212 more seats, or 14%, and 88 more flights than Q4 2018.
Now only Delta continues to operate the MD-80s in our market on the Atlanta route.
