File:United Airlines "City of Chicago" - N606UA (retired, stored) - Flickr - skinnylawyer.jpg

This piece of aviation history is sadly rotting in the Mojave Desert, unlikely to ever fly again.

United Airlines was the launch customer of the Boeing 767, and this particular aircraft became the first 767 to enter revenue service in September 1982. In the early 1990s, as United opened trans-Atlantic routes, this aircraft was upgraded to -ER specifications and fitted with a 3-class cabin. Later on in the 1990s, it was put into a dedicated premium 3-class service linking New York City to Los Angeles and San Francisco, before being retired in 2004 and put out to the pasture.

While the Airbus A300 was the first twinjet widebody, it was the Boeing 767 that made twinjet widebodies commonplace, by being certified for ETOPS and gaining ability to fly across the oceans. This is the very aircraft that started the proud lineage, and later got the necessary upgrades itself to fly across the Atlantic. The 767 has proven popular enough that 30 years later, it is still in production; it is only the second-ever widebody aircraft to reach 1,000 produced, after its big sister, the 747.

In the 1990s, my typical air travel experience involved flying between New York and Los Angeles on a United 767-200. The very last time I flew the route was in November 2003, and this aircraft was the exact one that I flew on.

United operated a fleet of 20 767-200s, numbered N601UA through N620UA; seven are stored here, while twelve have gone on to find new operators, and one, N612UA, had been lost as it operated Flight 175 on 11 September 2001.

I hope this aircraft will soon find a deserving home in a museum and get restored, even if it means it must be dismantled to be transported there. Another early 767 operator, Delta, did make its first 767 a museum piece.