Southwest Airlines accelerates retirement of older Boeing jets amid fleet modernization

Southwest plans to retire up to 55 Boeing 737 NGs annually until all are removed from service by the end of this decade. The airline expects that growing demand for narrowbody aircraft will allow it to secure favorable prices when selling its used planes.

CEO Bob Jordan addressed this strategy: “We have a unique opportunity to capture value and earnings on excess aircraft we do not need with our moderate growth plan. With that in mind, we are pursuing direct sales of [737]-800 aircraft. We are also looking at sale-leaseback where we can be opportunistic.”

Southwest’s history with Boeing dates back over five decades. Jordan reaffirmed this relationship: “We have a long history with Boeing, dating back more than 50 years to the day we commenced service with three Boeing 737 aircraft serving three cities. They’re part of our history and part of our future as we continue to recognize the many efficiencies and cost savings of a single fleet.”

As older NG models leave service, they will be replaced by new deliveries of both the MAX 7 (expected from 2026) and additional MAX 8s—of which Southwest has hundreds on order. This transition aims for an all-Boeing MAX fleet, further simplifying operations.

The introduction of the MAX series was intended to provide better competition against Airbus’ A320neo family but has faced setbacks including two fatal crashes in Indonesia (2018) and Ethiopia (2019), which led regulators worldwide to ground all MAX jets for nearly two years. More recently, an Alaska Airlines incident involving a door blowout on a MAX model in January 2024 again drew attention but did not result in serious injuries.

Founded in Texas in the late sixties, Southwest pioneered low-cost point-to-point air travel within deregulated markets—a model now adopted globally—and remains among America’s largest airlines by passenger numbers.