This week Finnair retired its last MD-11 airplane with a flight from Delhi to Bangkok. With that retirement, only KLM is still operating an MD-11 commercially. In fact, there are only two airlines operating any Douglas widebody commercially anywhere in the world. Biman Bangladesh still flies a couple DC-10s around. As a resident of Long Beach, where Douglas built those airplanes for 60 sixty years, this is really very sad.

Though the DC-10 had some serious problems when it rolled out in the 1970s resulting in devastating accidents, once the issues were fixed, the plane went on to be a reliable flying tank. Personally, I have great memories flying DC-10s. My first intercontinental flight was on an SAS DC-10 from LA to Copenhagen in 1985. Most of my other DC-10 flights were taking me to Hawai’i. (No wonder the memories are good.)

I can remember flying Western, American, United, and even Delta (when they briefly operated the DC-10s they inherited from Western) to Hawai’i. I even flew on some more interesting characters – World Airways when they had scheduled flights, for example. One time, I remember flying on a Leisure Air-operated ex-United DC-10 flying under the Suntrips banner. It’s probably fitting that the last time I flew on a DC-10 was on a Hawaiian aircraft from LA to Maui on July 11, 2001.

The MD-11 first flew in 1990 with Finnair, an airline which stayed loyal to the type for 20 years. Unfortunately, not many others felt the same way. The MD-11 was a longer, more efficient update of the DC-10 but it didn’t live up to its performance specs. Airlines walked away early and it never regained its footing. Besides, why buy 3 engines when you could stick with 2? The MD-11 did find a very successful home as a cargo airplane, however, and it continues to fly in great numbers in that capacity today.

I had two experiences on the MD-11. My first was in the early 1990s flying from LA to Portland on Delta. Seems like a strange route, but remember, Delta has tried to make Portland its transpacific gateway. This airplane fed that network.

The other was, conveniently, on good ole’ Finnair. In October 1998, I flew roundtrip from New York to Helsinki on my first big trip using pass travel as an airline employee. We flew over there for the weekend, and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Over 600 Douglas widebodies rolled off the line here in Long Beach, and now it’s almost impossible to find one flying passengers around. If you’d like to get on one, your best bet is to ship yourself via FedEx. If that’s not your idea of fun, you can always try to get on one of the two remaining passenger operators worldwide.

As I mentioned, the last passenger MD-11 operator is KLM. They still are flying their fleet from their Amsterdam home to the following cities:

• Bonaire
• Delhi
• Guayaquil
• Montreal
• Panama City
• Paramaribo
• Quito
• St Maarten
• Toronto
• Vancouver

In addition, for most of September, the airplane will go to Atlanta and Dubai.

If you want to fly a DC-10, well, that’s a lot tougher. The last passenger operator of that airplane is Biman Bangladesh. They are quickly phasing them out for 777s, but they still have some flying from Dhaka to the following cities on random days:

• Abu Dhabi
• Chittagong
• Dammam
• Doha
• Dubai
• Hong Kong
• Muscat
• Riyadh
• Sylhet

My guess is you won’t see these flying for much more than a couple years, so get out there and hop on one while you still have the chance.

Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianfuller/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33465428@N02/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/husseinabdallah/ / CC BY 2.0

It’s kind of strange writing an obituary for ATA right now. I mean, it’s like it happened in slow motion even though it actually happened very quickly. I guess technically it started a couple years ago, but things really sped up month when I posted about their decision to shed the Chicago/Midway hub. I felt like I was writing an obituary back then, and really, I was. Combine that with my brief heads up yesterday on ATA’s bankruptcy filing and the excellent comments that followed, and there’s not really much left to say, but of course, that’s not true.

When ATA brought back John Denison, former CEO of the airline and Southwest guy, I thought maybe the airline would swing back to realign more with Southwest. But when FedEx decided to drop ATA from its military flying contracts, what else could the airline do but shut down? That was such a big piece of their operation. I don’t know for sure why they were dropped from the contract, but I’d guess it’s a safe bet that ATA is no innocent bystander here.

The strange thing is that ATA is survived by World Airways and North American, both of which ATA acquired last year. Those airlines will operate as normal, and who knows what else will happen. Maybe they’ll pick up some of ATA’s planes. Will Southwest look at picking up ATA’s 737-800s and start a Hawai’i operation of their own? Who knows. If they weren’t interested in picking up a piece of Aloha, I’m not sure they’d be interested in this, but the price could be right. There’s definitely a dearth of seats going to the Islands right now, so there could be some opportunity.

If World and North American don’t pick up ATA’s planes, that’ll mean the end of passenger carrying DC-10 and L1011 aircraft in the US. Add that to the 737-200s that disappeared from US skies with Aloha last week and really most of the fun and cool aircraft are gone. Get on those Northwest DC-9s while you still can.

As for ATA, this brings the airline to an end after almost 35 years of flying. That’s pretty good for a little charter airline (let’s just forget about that ill-fated late-90′s expansion). I know a lot of people have had really bad experiences flying ATA over the years, but my four trips with them were excellent.

Back in the late 1990s, I flew with my parents and brother on the PHX-OGG flight. Our flights were on time and the crews were friendly. My next experience was during my last days at America West; Labor Day Weekend of 2002. A few of us got together and decided we wanted to fly the L1011 one more time before it left scheduled service (the L1011s were only on charters the last 5+ years). We flew to Indianapolis and hopped the next to last scheduled L1011 flight which went to Vegas. Once again, the flight was on time, the crews were great, and we were even invited to hang around for a tour of the plane.

My last two experiences were related to each other. The first was a one way trip back in 2003 from Washington/National to San Francisco via Chicago/Midway. When I got to Midway, the flight to San Francisco was oversold and they offered me a free flight if I waited until the next day. I gladly took it, spent the night with a good friend who lived in Chicago at the time, and made it home on-time the next day. That free flight was very welcome, because I used it to fly from San Francisco to Indianapolis to be the best man in that same friend’s wedding in March of 2004. Once again, the flight were on time and the crews were great.

So, while many may have stronger and angrier feelings, I will actually miss ATA.

(Original Image from Wikimedia)

DC-10 Retirement – 01-07-07 – 01 – 017
Originally uploaded by NWA Moments.

Yesterday morning, Northwest flight 98 arrived in Minneapolis/St Paul from Honolulu. That flight marks the last scheduled DC-10 flight in the United States.

The DC-10 has had and checkered career. After first flight in 1970, the type was plagued with problems. In 1979, American flight 191 crashed after an engine separated from the wing on departure and caused other damage to the aircraft. That left the type grounded until it was determined to be safe again.

The most famous DC-10 accident was likely United flight 232 in Sioux City, Iowa. After an uncontained engine failure in the tail engine, the aircraft lost all hydraulics. After a herculean effort to line the aircraft up with the runway using alternating thrust, the aircraft ended up losing stability and it did cartwheels down the runway. Amazingly, many people survived.

Since that time, the aircraft has become the reliable workhorse it was expected to be. I’ve had many DC-10 flights over the years including:

*SAS from LAX to Copenhagen
*United and American various flights
*Hawaiian, Delta, Western, World, and Leisure Air from LAX to Hawai’i

My last flight on a DC-10 was on Hawaiian from LAX to Kahului (Maui) in July 2001. I will always remember the aircraft as feeling very big inside. It seemed to be built like a tank.

The aircraft will live on in some third world countries, cargo, and charter flights for now. As usual, Douglas built an aircraft that can keep going for years.