Desert Home For Mothballed Jets
Updated: Mon, Oct 15 3:15 PM EDT
By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer
MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) - Parking spaces are quickly filling up in Mojave Airport's lot for idled jetliners, a 3,000-acre expanse in the Mojave Desert that is the last stop for many planes.
More than 200 commercial airplanes are stored at the airport - surpassing the number at the peak of the airline industry slump during the recession in the early 1990's. More arrive almost daily, evidence of how the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that have thrown the airline business into a tailspin.
"I had 17 come in last Monday, and then the next day I had six come in. They come in two, three a day, sometimes," said Dan Sabovich, general manager of the Mojave Airport.
Some will stay for a few months, others until they are sold or disassembled for scrap or parts.
U.S. carriers were already suffering from a weak economy, slashing service and costs, when the attacks prompted a 20 to 30 percent drop in passenger volume.
Mojave, located 100 miles north of Los Angeles, is one of only a few sites around the nation with the space to store giant commercial jetliners. Others include a nearby former Air Force base and an airfield near Phoenix.
Most are in desert regions because, without the harsh winters or humid air of other climes, a properly sealed plane can be stored there for years. The cost is almost negligible: $250 to $500 a month.
On a recent day at Mojave, more than $1 billion worth of behemoths - fleets of DC-10s, L1011s, 727s, 737s and giant 747s and 757s - stood in tidy ranks on the scrub-dotted desert, their windows and engine openings sealed with tape and foil - a process known as "pickling."
Sun glittered on their aluminum skins or picked out the bright red, white and blue paint jobs of Continental and other airlines. Mechanics for a private storage company worked on some that, although drained of most fuel, are kept in flyable condition.
Many airlines are using the downturn to accelerate the retirement of older planes, according to Michael Boyd, president of The Boyd Group, an Evergreen, Colo., aviation consulting firm.
Around the globe, nearly two dozen airlines have said they will get rid of some jets. United announced last month it would retire its entire fleet of 727-200s and 737-200s.
United, Delta and other major U.S. carriers have retired or are planning to retire more than 400 jetliners in the next six months, according to The Boyd Group. That's nearly 6 percent of the estimated 6,800 planes owned by domestic carriers.
"They go out there, they pickle 'em, and the people who own them hope for a miracle and pray they won't be taking a bath," Boyd said.
More than 180 planes were at Southern California Logistics Airport, another storage site located on the former George Air Force Base in Victorville.
Most of those planes were already there for maintenance or short-term storage, but 15 to 20 have arrived in the past month, said Dougall Agan, principal with Stirling Airports International, which manages the site.
On Thursday, President George Bush said in a speech that "people are getting back on airplanes." But some who run jetliner storage yards were skeptical.
"This is going to be 18 months to two years, in our assessment, to get back to normality," said Trevor Van Horn, president of Evergreen Air Center in Marana, Ariz., outside Tucson. About 50 jetliners were parked at the center, and there has been a fivefold increase in business since the terrorist attacks, Van Horn estimated.
He predicted as many as 150 more jetliners would arrive from all over the world in the next three months.
At the same time, the center has seen its heavy-maintenance business for jets dry up. The increased storage business "enables us to stay profitable," he said. |
