FedEx Cancels Swissair MD11 Deal
 

FedEx cancels Swissair order
Mon, 26 Nov 01 - 12:02
AirWatch Newswire

American courier service Federal Express has cancelled a deal with Swissair, to buy 15 of the collapsed airline's McDonnell Douglas wide-body jets. According to an article in Flight International magazine today, FedEx has decided to suspend the deal in an effort to 'rein in capacity.' Swissair was rescued from bankruptcy by a last minute Government loan earlier this month and has since restructured around its former subsidiary Crossair.

Reuters reports today that the MD-11 was already an unpopular model of aircraft even before the industry slowdown began a year ago and that since September 11th, demand has been almost totally wiped out. The 15 Swissair jets, which the company had leased from its own unit Flightlease, are to be held by a group of unnamed banks until another buyer can be found.

Wish we could afford one (or two), the best (converted) freighter in the business. I believe also that FedEx has canceled (or delayed) their planned conversion of the DC-10's > MD-10.

As I understand it, the MD10 programme has now been cancelled and the DC10-10s bought from United and American will be broken up for spares.

Yep - the MD11 was a pretty awful pax aircraft, but superb as a freighter giving both volume and payload in almost perfect proportion - no problems with 'bulking out before weighing out' there! :D :D :D

I've never been convinced about the MD11F. Its ok as a parcel carrier for the likes of Fedex/UPS, but not much good as a real freighter. No nose-door. Our lot studied and rejected the aircraft about 6-7 years ago.
I get the impression that LH regret theirs (which suits me just fine :D )
Now, lets talk BC17X - there's an aircraft. Max payload 87T, 4.5M (!!!) high cargo door.

C'mon! As I blast out of Inchon Tuesday night, bound for PANC with 170,000 pounds of freight, I will enjoy it less, knowing that Cargorat has told me it's not a "real" freighter!

Many whales are hauling freight without the nose door, by the way.

And the C-17 cost 450 million US in 1990 when the USAF bought them. Just give me six MD-11F's......

Fedex is probably looking for a better deal with the bankrupcy court ?

Guv, UPS announced acquisition of up to 35 MD-11's, do you know who the airframes are being acquired from?

Hi Huck! I've got nothting against the MD11 as such! I'm just prejudiced against freighters without nose-doors (rear ramp loading is also ok). No limit on length of your freight.

'Twould be nice to have a nose-door....

I read somewhere that Boeing in the sixties expected the world's pax fleet to eventually be supersonic. The 747, then, was designed from the beginning to mainly be a cargo plane - hence the upper deck.

I wish we had some - my father retired off the whale and said it was the best machine he ever flew - in 25,000 hours!

I know freight doesn't really care about cruise speed,but boy its annoying when a lead sled is holding everybody up/down.... :p

UPS's MD-11's (aka SCUDs...once you launch it, you can't predict where it will land!) were bought from, VASP Brazil and JAL, at least the first 13 firm orders. If any further options are exercised, Boeing will find them and convert them.

cargorat2:
LH started out with ca. 3 MD11´s for some ex Flying Tigers AC. They were quite good for making money, so the bean counters got more and more, and they now have 14. (If they had gotten some more with CF6´s a year ago there would be even more.)
So, LH isn´t regretting their´s.

I guess they got such a sweet deal on them, they´re actually making good money with the MD11.
BTW it´s the version with MLAW 222.9 t - hauls up to max ~96 t.
To FRA-MNL it takes about as much as a 742 at a much lesser cost.
Once they got used to the loading procedure it´s been working fine.
Of course you can´t really use it for "outsize" cargo as the 747 with a nose door.

Several crews will be trained again soon coming from LH-pax...

Love the cockpit (almost like the wonderbus) - still hate the yoke;-)

Fedex is still doing 96 md10 conversions, but will not be converting the other 50-100 options they had on the program. MD10s are out there and are a steadily growing percentage of the fleet.


Bohica

[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: Wino ]

Gents, as usual you are speculating without even the faintest of ideas...

FedEx still want the airplanes, but not at the agreed price. As you might now, Swissair Group (and therefore FlightLEase, the owner of the aircraft) is under receivership, which means, that any transaction has to be approved by the Administrator. Now this guy is a lawyer, not understanding any commercial issue at all. So when FedEx walked in to renegotiate the price, he refused to listen, which made them cancel the contract. They offer to buy them for the new price, and the Administrator looks f*cked!

And as nobody in the writing world knows anything, they write immediately about how bad the airplane is. If it would have been 747s, you'd read the same **** all over.

And you fall for that!!! Thaaa!

CR2, when is the last time you used that nose door? O.k. you're CV, but all the others probably don't even know that it is there. And... CFs have none, just the side door. :)

Hold on in there FedEx cos those airplanes are'nt going anywhere in PAX config except for Marana.

Hunter58: everyday!
I've just accepted to fly a 39000KG 40ft pallet from here to HKG. No way in the world
this could be flown on a non-NCD 74F.

The need for a nose door is very, very seldom. In fact it's extra weight and complexity that costs money. For those outsized items that need it, there can be just a few nose-loaders in the fleet.

CR2

as I said, you're in CV. But the 'normal' user of the 74s does not even know about the nose door. When you're in a freighter configuration session, it's always the two gents form Cargolux and Lufthansa insisting on the nose door, the rest does not really need it. So you're the absolute exception.

And FedEx definitely does not need a nose door. What they need is pallet positions, and they see no reason why to have an engine more to pay for (including the supporting structure, fuel, maintenance etc.) for just 3 lousy pallet positions more on a 744F. Just not worth the money.

For CV, that's another story!

hi all

WHY does JL have a 747f with a nosedoor only - no side door ?
make sense to anybody ?

believe it is ja-8132

I should agree that nose door is quite usefull. How you will load (using SCD only) nice 9.5 meters long ship sparepart, which is intended to fly today CV7975 KMQ-LUX?