The DC-9 won't completely disappear just yet. Delta will keep two DC-9 aircraft as spares for a few weeks as it continues to accept delivery of Boeing 717 aircraft, the airline wrote to employees.

The DC-9 meets those requirements, including the two-person cockpit, so Northwest sees no reason to replace them, said Hamlin, adding, “It’s a rugged airplane that’s got a reputation for ...

Delta Air Lines this week is retiring the last DC-9 in service by a major U.S. airline, the end of an era for an aircraft that made its debut in 1963.

Delta says it has flown a total of 305 DC-9s since 1965. In announcing the retirement of its last DC-9 jets, Delta notes it has removed or retired more than 350 aircraft from its fleet since 2008.

The DC-9 was a tough bird, though, and after complete overhauls proved nearly as good as a brand new aircraft, Northwest kept them in service. Delta's history with the DC-9 is a long one.

A Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta on Monday marked the end of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9. The passenger jet first took flight in 1965 and expanded air travel across the U.S.

Nearly half a century after it became the first U.S. airline to fly twin-engine DC-9s, Delta Air Lines retired the last of those venerable airliners Monday.

On Sept. 11, 1974, 82 people were traveling on a DC-9 airplane headed to Charlotte when it crashed more than three miles shy of the runway, plowed through a cornfield and a patch of woods, and ...