In this photo Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013, photo American Airlines Capt. Paul Wannberg, left, and First Officer Robert Popp prepare a Boeing 757 jet for take off from Dallas.
Captain Paul Wannberg glides an old Boeing 757 over the New Mexico desert, lining up with the runway.
A computerized voice squawks elevation warnings. Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. Touchdown. Outside the cockpit window sit nearly a hundred airplane carcasses, perfectly lined up. They are jets that nobody wants anymore.
And after 26,057 takeoffs and landings, this 24-year-old American Airlines plane is about to join them.
"This is my first time here, and it's a sad place," First Officer Robert Popp tells the control tower.
The Airlines used to store planes in the desert during slow travel months. Sometimes, unwanted jets would be sold to carriers in Russia or Africa. Today, a man on the other end of the radio responds, "they're chopping them up."
American Airlines are on the largest jet-buying spree in the history of aviation, ordering more than 8,200 new planes with manufacturers Airbus SAS and The Boeing Co in the past five years. There are now a combined 24 planes rolling off assembly lines each week, up from 11 a decade ago. And that rate is expected to keep climbing. The new planes allow the airlines to save on fuel, now their biggest cost, while offering passengers more amenities some for a fee.
Passengers can plug in to work or be entertained by a seat-back TV and fly some international routes nonstop for the first time. And the commercial divisions of Boeing and Airbus get a steady stream of cash for years, which is a key reason investors have doubled the companies' stock price in the past year.
The bulk of the planes are going to new or quickly-growing airlines that serve an expanding middle class in India and the rest of Asia. The International Air Transport Association expects the number of passengers worldwide to grow 31 percent to 3.9 billion in the next four years.