Jan. 6, 2014 marks the final time the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 will be flown by Delta Airlines. The venerable aircraft was first manufactured in 1965 and has been in use ever since that time. The plane sat between 60 and 100 people, depending on the model.

Delta acquired the planes from its 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines. Delta previously used the planes from 1965 to 1993. Northwest meanwhile had been using the planes for nearly 20 years at the time of the merger. With a few upgrades in the early 1990s, Northwest spruced up their fleet and saved a boatload of money. The airline decided that the reliability of the DC-9 was not an issue and that it was still efficient enough to compete with more modern aircrafts.

While the planes were much older then other aircrafts in Delta's fleet, they were arguably the toughest planes to take to the skies. Currently 16 DC-9 planes are still in use across the country. McDonnell Douglas produced exactly 976 DC-9s between the 1965 and 1982.

The DC-9 has been a workhorse in our domestic fleet while providing a reliable customer experience," said Nat Pieper, Delta's vice president of fleet strategy. "The aircraft's retirement paves the way for newer, more efficient aircraft."

While the DC-9 will be retired its legacy will still be felt in Airports across America. That's because Delta's replacement aircraft the Boeing 717 is a modernized version of the DC-9. The 717s, though, were the last in the series and production was halted for good in in 2006.

In other Delta Airlines news, a website glitch occurred yesterday between 10 a.m. and noon. The glitch provided prospective fliers the chance to snatch up astonishingly low fares for a limited time. The best part about the glitch is that the company is honoring the tickets purchased during that brief two-hour window. The deals included a round-trip between Cincinnati and Salt Lake City for $48.41. The normal sticker price for that jaunt is over $400. A Hawaii flight also popped up on the site for under $7.

Were you one of the lucky souls who got an amazingly cheap fare? Let us know in the comments section below.