I’d love thoughts on why the MD11 seems to be so popular as a freighter while it is seemingly a failure with the passenger carrying airlines. I understand that the third engine results in higher fuel consumption, but why do the freight carriers not seem to care as much as the passenger airlines?
The DC-10/MD-11 developed a bad reputation with the flying public mostly for three reasons:
Passengers didn’t trust them, so they were put on freight dog duty.
Random thoughts:
Boxes pay better than people. (I’ll say it before somebody else does: boxes have always commanded a premium):shock:
By the time you take the interior out of the MD11 it hauls a pretty good payload. Look around any passenger airplane and you see that 50% of the interior volume is air.
A freighter has lower total operating costs than a passenger airplane. That difference makes the MD11 a money maker in the freight business and a loser in the self loading cargo arena. Quite a few were sold by the pax airlines when they were desperate to cut capacity, the freight airlines picked them up relatively cheap.
Anybody else?
No John, I’d say you covered it.
Thanks for the responses. I recently heard that there are just one or two passenger carriers left that fly the MD11. As the supply of MD11’s dries up, what plane do you anticipate as a replacement? Perhaps the 777? I know that Boeing is pitching their new 747 Freighter but that seems like a big step up both in cost and size.
A300 is being used a lot…?
Also, the MD11’s lousy fuel economy matters less and its low acquisition/ownership costs matter more since freighters in general have lower utilization than passenger aircraft.
If you hurry to your closest bookstore, you can pick up the January 2010 issue of Airliner World, which their feature article is ‘20 years of the MD-11’. They talk about this very subject, why it went well in transition from the DC-10, passenger to freight dog, and the short-lived MD-10. Definitely worth the read.
BL.
I would have said it’s because they’re such a bitch to land!
Are some stuck aloft? 
Also, boxes can’t complain.
FedEx and UPS fly 'em, mainly the -600’s…Although there might be a few older ones still around.
FedEx also flies the 310.
Not that I know of, but I have seen one or two decide to turn over on their backs at a bad moment! 
On a personal note, the MD-11 is very ramp friendly. Both in pax and freighter. The DC / MD 10 ain’t half bad either 
KLM still has 8 (or so) active.
I ocassionaly get the opportunity to maintain and/or repair the MadDog. They do require some man-hours to maintain. The number two engine in the tail is no fun at all.The aircraft likes to give you trouble at departure time too. It’s a neat plane and sharp looking. We have some old JAL’s and Swiss Air’ s in our fleet. Heard it was difficult to land at first when transitioning over to it. Heavy lifter for a cheap price compared to the B744F or the B777F.
Made many trips from Atlanta to Frankfurt on these in the late 90’s and always enjoyed the flights. Seemed to be more stable as a whole than the 767 flights.
I once had a cockpit tour of one of World Airlines’ MD-11 freighters. It was doing the (at the time) daily DAY-BRU run for Emery Worldwide.
Guy there told me the plane would land itself, literally.
World Airlines
Ya mean Airways…?