Congratulations on 24 years from the 757. The plane today celebrates its 24th year in the sky. Its first flight was February 19th 1982 and it entered service 11 months later.

The 757 was conceived as a replacement for the venerable 727 which was a focal point of short haul travel throughout the entire world. After a slow start to begin with the 757 sales picked up in the late 80s and it has become the domestic transcontinental backbone for many airlines in the United States as it surpassed the 767 which is its close cousin in sales. It excels in so many missions. It is the ideal plane for transcontinental routes as it combines capacity and range. It is still efficient for short hops while it found much success in later years flying shorter intercontinental flights. It is the only airplane operated by every one of the big six network airlines in the United States (AA, UA, DL, CO, NW, US) along with others. While it only had marginal sales outside of the United States, it still was a success as 1050 frames were sold. Eventually the 757-300 was developed which was stretched and had incredible operating economics which made it ideal for leisure orientated flights on both scheduled and charter airliens.

Congratulations to all the engineers that designed this marvelous plane and to all those that worked in operating it successfully for 24 years. Although production has finally stopped after 23 years of sales, the 757-200 holds the distinction of being one of the longest running plane models produced as the last 757-200 rolled off the line 23 years after the first without any major overhauls. The plane also has a very good safety record which is a tribute to those that worked on the beautiful plane which will likely remain in service for 10-20 years as few airlines have even announced plans to phase it out let alone retiring the plane.

Congratulations and happy birthday!