Well, this morning a pretty sad (well, from a dork perspective) press release arrived this morning from Finnair, who will stop MD-11 flights next week. The final MD-11 flight, AY022 from Delhi to Helsinki, flies on Monday. Over the course of almost 20 years of operations, MD-11s have carried about 14 million Finnair passengers on over 50,000 flights.
This leaves Finnair with an Airbus-only long-haul fleet composed of A330s and A340s, which the airline says “consume 20 per cent less fuel per passenger than the MD-11 they replace.” In addition, the airline will begin taking delivery of A350 aircraft in 2014.
The two MD-11 aircraft are currently up for sale, though Finnair is also considering operating them as freighters.
Photo Credit: Finnair.
The announcement is kind of sad as Finnair was the first passenger operator of the type, introducing the aircraft into service in December of 1990. Another bit of sad news is that it leaves only one scheduled passenger operator of the type – KLM, who should be using them for a few more years, though. World Airways has a few of the aircraft, mainly used for charters. One of them is used for Sonair, the airline of Angola’s national petroleum company.
Of course, the aircraft has a long future as a cargo aircraft, with FedEx and UPS being the largest operators.
Unfortunately, the MD-11 was never all that popular as a passenger variant. A big factor there was that it initially did not meet range and fuel burn targets (why Singapore canceled its orders and American sent its MD-11s over to FedEx). McDonnell Douglas did improve the aircraft, but it was too late, with airlines opting for the Airbus A340 and Boeing 777.
If you’re interested in learning a bit of more history on the aircraft, check out this great fan page.
Sigh! Another blow to aesthetically sound aviation.
Just today saw a KLM MD-11 on final approach into SFO.