American Airlines Takes You on a Walk Down Memory Lane With the MD-80

AvGeeks, did you miss the window to book a seat on the final revenue flight of American Airlines' last MD-80? And do you not fly quite enough to qualify to win a seat on said flight?

I'm sorry to say I'm not here with a secret hack to get a ticket. (More than a hundred of AA's own employees are trying to do that as it is, without much chance of getting on board.) But I am here to show you a way you can still nerd out as the Mad Dog era winds down. American has compiled an interactive timeline on its website that takes readers through the history of its outgoing narrowbody workhorse. Click here to learn more about how the plane came to American in the first place, how the airline eventually grew to be the largest operator of the aircraft type, and some other cool trivia along the way, like how AA converted some of its MD-82s to longer-range -83s in-house.

Also, watch this space for more coverage of the MD-80's final flight. Not to rub it in too much, but we'll be there -- to bring you inside the bittersweet retirement of an airplane that dominated the skies of the United States in the 1980s.