Aircraft – Douglas DC-9

While Northwest will always be remembered for its association with the Boeing 747-400, its most numerous fleet type and the one most passengers would likely have experienced in its last two decades would be the DC-9. In fact, NWA was the world’s largest operator of the type, with a peak of 178 in the fleet in 1997.

However, Northwest never ordered a single airframe from Long Beach – the core of the fleet came via the Republic Airlines merger, with additional frames coming from opportunistic second-hand purchases well into the 1990s.

Our photo exploration of the DC-9 then will start with the predecessor carriers who built the institutional know-how to make this aircraft the dependable, profitable workhorse it was in five decades.

If you use these photos, please credit the Northwest Airlines History Center – please also contact us to let us know how you’re using them and if we can be of further help!

West Coast

WCA was an early adopter of turbine equipment, being the first customer for Fairchild’s F-27. With strong “shuttle” corridors of Seattle-Portland and Seattle-Spokane, plus routes extending out to Salt Lake City and San Francisco, even before the mid-1960s planners could see that jet equipment was going to be needed to remain competitive on its core routes, as it faced off against majors like Northwest and United. An order was placed with Douglas early in 1966 for three of the initial model DC-9-14. These were delivered between September and December 1966 to much acclaim (even if withering glances were shot across the ramp at their headquarters at Seattle’s Boeing Field.)

Celebration turned to tragedy on October 1, 1966, however, as N9101 crashed into a mountain while on descent to Portland, killing all 18 aboard. This was the first loss of a DC-9 anywhere and the first crash for West Coast.

A replacement ship was delivered in August 1967. Three of the longer -31 models were subsequently ordered but were taken up by Air West after the Summer 1968 merger.

Bonanza

Ed Converse had been especially aggressive at introducing Fairchild F-27 turboprop aircraft to the Bonanza network, eliminating the DC-3 in 1960. Yet even that almost doubling of capacity still could not keep up with the rapid growth of the southwestern states, and Bonanza experienced record-high load factors (among ALL U.S. airlines, whether Local Service or mainline!) Bringing in larger jet equipment was imperative. After an attempt to order the British BAC -111 fell through, Bonanza became the second carrier (after Delta) to order the initial short-body Douglas DC-9, with three examples entering service in 1966 and three more in 1967. The productivity of these 64-passenger “Funjets” allowed Bonanza to offer very attractive fares on the LAX-Vegas shuttle and helped cross-subsidize propeller equipment service into the smaller stations on the system.

Longer Dash-30 series DC-9s were also ordered but not taken up, as the clock ran out on Bonanza in 1968 when it merged into Air West.

Air West

The newly-merged company quickly repainted the West Coast and Bonanza fleets, but did not have time or flexibility in its brief life to rebalance the network. The DC-9 was definitely the right airplane, but RW’s route structure was such a hodgepodge at this point that natural traffic flows from the Pacific Northwest to the Desert Southwest and Southern California were impeded. The choice of bold titles on a white fuselage, with different color vertical tails, would be completely in vogue in the 2020s.

Hughes Airwest

DC-9 equipment was the mainstay of the Hughes fleet, and as smaller stations and heavily subsidized routes were cut, the type got to spread its wings to new destinations like Milwaukee and Des Moines as well as connecting the dots in its historic range. The inherited fleet was finally expanded with used frames in the early 1970s and new-build -31s from 1976 through 1978.

At the time of acquisition by Republic, the Hughes fleet was operating 35 of the DC-9-30 series and 10 of the DC-9-10 series.

Southern

During 1965 SO evaluated the short-haul jet options available to keep up with increasing traffic and customer expectations, and on August 24 placed an order with Douglas Aircraft for three DC-9-10 for delivery in January, February, and March 1967, with options for three additional frames. Cost for the three firm orders was quoted as $11 million per the 1965 annual report.

Over 1969, the fleet was augmented with leases to grow from 7 aircraft at the beginning of the year, to 15 by the end of the year (three -30 series and five more -10 series), significantly replacing Martin 404 service and representing 60% of the company’s passenger-miles flown. By the end of 1970 that figure was expected to reach 80%, as two of the -10 leases were replaced with new -30s. However, the crash of a -30 in West Virginia while on a charter flight …

In 1973 the company significantly expanded the fleet again, purchasing 13 DC-9-14 frames and engines from Delta.

By the end of 1975, the Southern DC-9 fleet was 27 strong – and counted 29 by the end of 1977.

North Central

By the mid 1960s, North Central’s success had again outstripped the uplift capabilities of its fleet. Despite continuing to add passenger-pleasing Convair equipment, the time had come to add jet aircraft which would allow both a step up in capacity as well as the ability to handle more flight segments per day.

The company was courted by BAC with their One-Eleven (rejected for being too small), Fokker with their F-28 (also too small), Boeing with the 737, and Douglas with the DC-9-10. Boeing was considered the best step ahead, but when the board was ready to order, 737 flight deck development was being plagued with industry dissension about including a flight engineer’s position.

Douglas used a two-crew cockpit from the start, and was ready to take North Central’s order, but Hal Carr was not satisfied with the short fuselage of the -10 model. When the -30 series was finally made available (at a price only a little bit more than the -10), Carr signed the contract in July 1965 for five frames with an option for five more, for $20 million.

On September 8, 1967, (after a summer of route proving and familiarization flights) the first scheduled North Central DC-9 service began. For the first time in its history, North Central was flying factory-new aircraft. Click here to open the Summer 1967 special edition of the Northliner staff newsletter, all about the introduction of the DC-9!

Eventually North Central operated a total of 22 DC-9-30s and 18 DC-9-50s.

Republic

The combination of three DC-9 heavy carriers created the world’s then-largest operator of the type. Republic’s network was majority DC-9 focused, with the ability of flight and cabin crews to interchange across all three sizes of the airframe (after cross-training and some equipment standardization) proving to eventually be a strategic strength for the airline.

Northwest

After the Republic merger, Northwest continued to opportunistically pick up compatible -30, -40, and -50 series frames as they were retired from other carriers, even as new A320s were coming on stream. Frequency was key to growing traffic, and even with the Republic fleet, Northwest was behind the curve at the dawn of the 1990s compared to Delta, American, and United. It was faster and easier to add dozens of DC-9s to ramp up service, even if slight modifications were necessary, than to wait for Airbus to accelerate production – and besides, an A320 had too much capacity for many NWA regional destinations. Eventually reaching a peak of 183 frames in 1997, the fleet would undergo a top-to-bottom cabin refresh, from seats to overheads, which brought the passenger experience up to or ahead of anything the other major carriers were offering in the mid-1990s.

As the regional-jet revolution finally took hold, Avro RJ85s were used to replace the short-body DC-9-14/15 frames. The -30/40 series would slowly disappear as Airbus A319s, Embraer 175s, and Bombardier CRJ-900s were introduced, leaving only the -50 series by the time of the merger with Delta.

And while the -50s were retired shortly after the merger, Delta did acquire the former AirTran fleet of Boeing 717s (originally MD-95), the final incarnation of the DC-9 design, and are still flying them in the early 2020s on similar routes where Northwest used its “Nines”.

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