Delta Air Lines Ends Boeing 717 Service at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport

The DC-9 family's presence at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) has come to an end after over 60 years, following Delta Air Lines' quiet exit from the airport in May 2026.

The Boeing 717, a descendant of the DC-9 lineage, was the last aircraft type in the family still operating at MSP. Delta had been gradually reducing its 717 operations at the airport since January 2026, pulling routes one at a time and replacing them with Airbus narrowbodies.

The airline operated just 59 717 flights from MSP during the first six days of May, serving only four destinations and offering approximately 6,500 seats. This was a fraction of the previous month's operation, with Delta flying 498 717 departures from MSP across a wider route network in April.

The DC-9 family has been a presence at Minneapolis-St. Paul since the late 1960s, when Northwest Airlines began operating the type on domestic routes from its MSP hub. The aircraft was well suited to these missions: a 100-125 seat narrowbody that could operate from shorter runways, turn quickly at the gate, and fly eight or nine segments per day.

Northwest flew its DC-9s principally from MSP, Detroit, and Memphis on short and medium-haul domestic routes. When Delta merged with Northwest in 2008, it inherited 97 DC-9s, mostly Series 50 variants averaging over 30 years of age.