After gracing the Alaskan skies for 23 years, the Seattle based carrier retired its last Mc Donnell Douglas MD-80 aircraft from passenger service.
The MD-80, an stretched and improved version of the older Douglas DC-9, was introduced to the world's airlines early in the 1980's and it would burn 30% less fuel than the venerable Boeing 727 then widely in service. After the deregulation of the late 1970's, Alaska started to look for a 727 replacement. The then new Boeing 757 was considered but it was too expensive and the ground equipments would also have to be changed, the then new Boeing 737-300 was slightly too small in passenger capacity, so the airline turned to the Long Beach CA manufacturer and looked at the twin jet MD-80. Mc Donnell Douglas flew an MD-80 aircraft to Seattle, for sale purposes, in 1983. The Boeing 737-400 was also added to the fleet, those were converted to pax/cargo combi configuration.
The MD-80 aircraft was chosen over the Boeing 737-300, the order was placed in 1983 and the first unit, an MD-83, was delivered to Alaska early in 1985. The MD-83 was the variant chosen because it had a considerably long range, Alaska wanted a medium haul aircraft to be assigned on routes out of Seattle to several points in the state of Alaska as well as many points on the West Coast all the way down to San Diego (I took the above picture in San Diego in 2005). A total of 48 units would eventually be phased in, one of them which was delivered in 1992 was the 1000th MD-80 to come out of the Long Beach plant in Southern California. The MD-80 was the backbone of the fleet during the 1990's, the last 727 left in 1993. The MD-90, which Delta launched in the late 1980's, was also ordered but the order was canceled because the performances were judged not satisfactory enough for the airline.
During the middle of the 1990's, Alaska flew charter flights to Russia with the MD-80, flights to Russia started early in the 1970's but flights to Russia were suspended shortly afterwards, this was probably because there was still the Cold War between the United States and the then USSR. After the Cold War and communism ended, in 1991, charter flights to Russia resumed and continued for the rest of the decade. In addition to auxiliary fuel tanks, a second altimeter was added on the aircraft because ATC in Russia assigns altitudes in meters!
Alaska suffered on major disaster in 2000. An MD-80 bound from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco as flight AS 261, crashed into the Pacific Ocean not far from Los Angeles; it was found that the aircraft in question had serious problems with the stabilizer. None of the passengers or crew members survived.
In the middle of the 2000's, 24 MD-80's remained the fleet and the airline decided to expedite the phase out of those so that it would move towards an all 737 fleet. Alaska decided it would move towards an all NG737 fleet in the long run, to save pilot training and maintenance costs. The MD-80, then new in the 1980's, was fuel efficient compared to the 727 but is now considered as a gas guzzler compared to the Next Generation Boeing 737-800 Series which burns 20% less fuel.
Alaska now operates an all Boeing 737 fleet consisting mostly of 700, 800 and 900 Series, the latter being the longest variant, in passenger service. A few 737-400's still remain in the fleet as combi aircraft. The last 200, the first of which came in 1981, left the fleet in 2007. In the near term future, Alaska will have a fleet consisting of only Next Generation 737's.
