Searching for the Triple Nickel

My cousin was leaving for Germany last night to be with his family that are already over there.  I figured that provided a good excuse for me to head over to the airport, not that I needed one anyway.  It was a pretty nice night with some light cloud cover.  I generally like it when I can get some clouds in my plane pictures anyway.

 I had a little time to kill before I caught my cousin's plane.  So I decided to go to my normal spot where the first plane up was this CRJ-900 that was arriving from Portland, Maine.

 This A320 was coming in from Charlotte, North Carolina.

 I wasn't expecting to catch the Fed Ex flight from Memphis.

 Another A320, but this one was coming in from LaGuardia.

 And then there was the MD-88 that was coming from Tampa, Florida.  Other airlines are retiring their MD fleets, I suspect Delta can't be too far behind.

 This was another CRJ-900 that was arriving from Buffalo.

 We have the newer cousin of the MD-80 in the form of a MD-90.  This particular one was arriving from Denver.

 Flying in from Ithaca, NY was this CRJ-200.

 This CRJ-900 was coming from Burlington, VT.

 Probably one of my favorite liveries out there is the Southwest Airlines livery.  This particular 737 (Southwest only has 737's) was arriving from Phoenix.

 And this CRJ-700 was coming in from Montreal.

 My favorite commercial aircraft is the 757.  I think it is one of the more graceful looking planes out there. 

 Anyway, this 757-300 was arriving from Orlando.

 This A319 was coming from Logan Airport in Boston.

 Arriving from Southwest Florida International was this 737.

 This particular MD-88 was coming from Atlanta.

 A 757 arriving from San Diego.

 One of the planes I was waiting for was the A340 belonging to Air France.  I think this is a daily flight that always arrives in the evening here.

 It's kind of a cool looking plane.

 Another 757 that was arriving from San Francisco.

 An A320 belonging to Spirit.

 This is the plane that my cousin was leaving on.  It is Flight 86 that is going to Frankfurt.

 An Embrear 175 belonging to Jet Blue.

 Another Spirit A320.

 This Southwest plane was coming in from Baltimore.

 The next plane was kind of a surprise visitor.  This 737 belongs to Sun Country which is a airline out of Minnesota.  Recently, they started to add the names of Minnesota lakes to their planes.  I think this is kind of cool and is a little bit of a throwback to the days when airlines would name some of their planes after some cities.  I don't think they do that too much anymore.  Anyway, this particular one is named after Lake Superior.

 The latest iteration of the DC-9 (which the MD planes are a continuation of) is the Boeing 717.  The DC-9 was developed by the Douglas Corporation in the mid-1960's as an aircraft to be used for frequent, short flights.  The final DC-9 was delivered in 1982.  The MD-80 series was developed in the late 1970's as a growth of the DC-9.  This was after Douglas merged with McDonnell to form McDonnell-Douglas.  After McDonnell-Douglas merged with Boeing in the 90's, the Boeing 717 was born.  It's production ended in 2006.  In the 40 year span, a little over 2,000 aircraft of this series were produced.

The other plane I was waiting for was the Airbus A319 that was serving as Flight 555 out of O'Hare to Detroit.  Or as I like to call it, the Triple Nickel.  As I think about this flight number, I wonder if it is a carryover from old days.