Allegiant Air is retiring its last MD-80 this month

Photo: © Alan Wilson

The US low-cost carrier Allegiant Air has scheduled the very last passenger flight operated by an MD-80 for November 25th, this year.

Allegiant’s almost 30 year-old MD-80 fleet will mostly be replaced by Airbus A320 family aircraft, most of which were ordered from the European aircraft manufacturer in 2015 and 2016.

As of early-November, Allegiant still operates a total of 20 MD-80s.

The carrier originally planned to retire the last part of its McDonnell Douglas fleet in 2019, but last year announced that it had moved this plan forward to late-2018.

CEO Maurice Gallagher stated that it has “proven to be an excellent decision” to retire the fleet early, due to rising oil prices and the very bad fuel efficiency of the outdated MD-80.

Today, Allegiant is operating 96 aircraft, 76 of them are Airbus A319 and A320s. In comparison, seven years ago, the budget airline was flying an all-MD-80 fleet of 58 aircraft.

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