It’s not unusual for pilots to celebrate their retirement flights, often by bringing their family along for the special occasion. However, one retiring Delta captain celebrated his retirement in a way that I’ve never heard of before. I first wrote about this a few days ago, but wanted to share an update, as more details have emerged, and this was indeed as cool as we had assumed.
Delta captain charters A330, flies friends & family to Hawaii
A Delta Airbus A330-900neo captain named Keith Rosenkranz just operated his retirement flight, after working at the airline since 1991. He celebrated this accomplishment in a very special way — he didn’t just bring his family along as passengers on the flight, but instead he chartered the whole aircraft for a one night party in Hawaii.
Rosenkranz lives in Texas, and chartered the two-year-old A330-900neo with the registration code N411DX for this special trip. It’s probably not a coincidence that this was even an aircraft in the special “Team USA” livery. According to flight tracking software:
- On Tuesday, February 27, 2024, the jet flew as flight number DL8871, first from Dallas (DFW) to Los Angeles (LAX) in a flight time of 3hr18min, and then from Los Angeles to Kona (KOA) in a flight time of 5hr20min
- On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, the jet flew as flight number DL8872, first from Kona to Los Angeles in a flight time of 4hr45min, and then from Los Angeles to Dallas in a flight time of 2hr28min
The aircraft landed in Kona at 2:28PM on Tuesday, and took off again at 9:02AM on Wednesday, so I’m sure it was an action packed afternoon in Hawaii! Below you can see the takeoff video from when the flight was departing Los Angeles on Tuesday.
What an unbelievably cool party!
This is just such an awesome story. We’ve now learned (thanks to @xJonNYC) that there were 112 guests on this flight, so with a capacity of 281 passengers, the plane was around 40% full.
The captain included friends from all aspects of his life on this journey, from school friends, to Air Force friends, to Delta friends, to neighbors, and many more. He also included several Delta pilots and their spouses who retired during the pandemic, but were unable to have their own retirement flight.
I’m sure many people are curious about the cost of this adventure, which was no doubt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s anyone’s guess what the total was for this. The aircraft flew for roughly 16 hours, not including the positioning to Dallas. Typically a medium sized private jet costs around $10,000 per hour to charter, so I expect a wide body commercial jet would cost significantly more than that.
Presumably Delta gave the captain as good of a deal as it could on this adventure, given the number of years he spent flying for the airline. Furthermore, since it’s winter, Delta no doubt has some spare wide body aircraft. Still, this definitely wasn’t cheap.
It’s my understanding that the captain did this as a gift, so he didn’t ask his friends and family to chip in for this special charter flight. And I suppose since he was captain of the flight, he was also getting paid for this, so at least he recouped some of the investment. 😉
Of course pilots are well paid professionals, but most of them aren’t dropping six figure amounts on their retirement party. I assume the captain has made some good investments over the years and also values peak experiences in life, and this reflects that. One thing is for sure — this is a party that the captain, his family, and his friends, will never forget.
Bottom line
A retiring Delta captain chartered an Airbus A330-900neo, and made his last flight a charter flight for friends and family to Hawaii. While a small celebration is normal for a retiring pilot, taking 112 people along on your private retirement flight is truly unheard of.
Congrats to Captain Rosenkranz on an amazing 30+ year career at Delta, and a heck of a party to kick off retirement!
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