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Grounded in Arizona: Flights arrive but don't leave as ailing airlines park fleets
A week ago Friday, 10 Delta Airlines jetliners flew into a remote desert airstrip between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. Not one flew out.
So far this past week, planes owned by Avianca Ecuador, Air Canada and its regional carrier Jazz Aviation, and a contract carrier from Bangor, Maine, have arrived at Pinal Air Park near Marana.
They carried no passengers and only a skeleton crew, usually just a pilot and a first officer, and those planes, too, never left, reports The Arizona Republic, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
In the last 10 days more than 50 jetliners have filed final flight plans to the converted World War II training base.
They are part of a wave of ghost flights landing at an unprecedented rate at desert airstrips all over the Southwest near places like Marana and Kingman in Arizona, Mojave and Victorville in California, Roswell, New Mexico, and Abilene, Texas.
The planes will sit in storage at the airstrips as airlines deal with the economic shocks of the COVID-19 crisis. Since Feb. 20, airline passenger traffic is down an estimated 95%, and industry stocks have lost two-thirds of their value.
Rather than flying empty planes, most airlines are parking significant portions of their fleets, which even for a short term involves an intricate maintenance schedule to make sure the planes are airworthy if and when they are needed again.
https://news.yahoo.com/grounded-arizona-flights-arrive-dont-162954229.html
So far this past week, planes owned by Avianca Ecuador, Air Canada and its regional carrier Jazz Aviation, and a contract carrier from Bangor, Maine, have arrived at Pinal Air Park near Marana.
They carried no passengers and only a skeleton crew, usually just a pilot and a first officer, and those planes, too, never left, reports The Arizona Republic, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
In the last 10 days more than 50 jetliners have filed final flight plans to the converted World War II training base.
They are part of a wave of ghost flights landing at an unprecedented rate at desert airstrips all over the Southwest near places like Marana and Kingman in Arizona, Mojave and Victorville in California, Roswell, New Mexico, and Abilene, Texas.
The planes will sit in storage at the airstrips as airlines deal with the economic shocks of the COVID-19 crisis. Since Feb. 20, airline passenger traffic is down an estimated 95%, and industry stocks have lost two-thirds of their value.
Rather than flying empty planes, most airlines are parking significant portions of their fleets, which even for a short term involves an intricate maintenance schedule to make sure the planes are airworthy if and when they are needed again.
https://news.yahoo.com/grounded-arizona-flights-arrive-dont-162954229.html