After ten bountiful years, US airlines started 2020 with renewed optimism that the worst of the Boeing 737 MAX grounding was over. Yet barely two months into the new year, the COVID-19 crisis placed another dark cloud over the industry’s future, as Chris Sloan reports from Florida.
The retirement of Delta Air Lines’ McDonnell Douglas MD-88s and MD-90s is now imminent.
AIRTEAMIMAGES.COM/WILLIAM FILION SAURO
THE EMERGENCE of the coronavirus put the US aviation sector into a tailspin almost overnight. There is no known immunity to COVID-19 for humans and commercial aviation is no different, becoming the first of many industries in the country to be devastated by this unprecedented medical disaster.
International travel restrictions, which were expanding on a daily basis, along with a fear of contracting the virus on planes, resulted in a complete collapse in demand.
