McDonnell Douglas DC-10 - Operators

Operators

On January 8, 2007, Northwest Airlines retired its last remaining DC-10 from scheduled passenger service, replacing it with an Airbus A330 for a route between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Honolulu, thus ending the aircraft's operations with major airlines. Regarding the retirement of Northwest's DC-10 fleet, Wade Blaufuss, spokesman for the Northwest chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association said, "The DC-10 is a reliable airplane, fun to fly, roomy and quiet, kind of like flying an old Cadillac Fleetwood. We're sad to see an old friend go." "The DC-10 is going to be remembered as a better cargo plane than passenger plane," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group. In November 2006 ATA Airlines announced that they had purchased seven of Northwest's remaining DC-10s to replace their Lockheed L-1011s. Omni Air International purchased six of Northwest's DC-10 aircraft.

The aging models are now largely used as dedicated freight aircraft. American Airlines and United Airlines sold their large DC-10-10 fleets to cargo carrier FedEx. Many have been modernized to MD-10s by adding a glass cockpit, which eliminates the need for a flight engineer. Other DC-10 aircraft continue in charter and cargo services with their three-person flight deck configuration. Omni Air International and World Airways continue to operate the DC-10 on charter passenger services as well as for the Air Mobility Command. Biman Bangladesh Airlines operates five DC-10-30s as one of their primary passenger aircraft as of 2009.

Non-airline operators include the Royal Netherlands Air Force with three DC-10-30CF-based KDC-10 tanker aircraft, the USAF with its 59 KC-10s, and the 10 Tanker Air Carrier with its modified DC-10-10 used for fighting wildfires. Orbis International has used a single DC-10-10 converted into a flying eye hospital. Surgery is performed on the ground and the operating room is located between the wings for maximum stability. Orbis chose to replace its aging DC-10 with a MD-10, that was converted from a DC-10 jointly donated by FedEx and United Airlines. The MD-10 eye hospital is expected to be flying in 2010. Additionally, one former American Airlines DC-10-10 is operated by the Missile Defense Agency as the Widebody Airborne Sensor Platform (WASP).

In January 2011, there were 97 DC-10s in service with commercial operators FedEx Express (74), Biman Bangladesh Airlines (4), Kelowna Flightcraft Air Charter (3), and others with fewer aircraft.