Final MD-11 passenger flight

[ShiftyNJ]

I'm a bit of a plane geek. Not seeing a category like this, I am posting this in travel. If there is interest I will share more similar stories.

Just saw that the Dutch airline KLM closed out the world's last passenger service with the Boeing MD-11 trijet on Oct. 26.

Flight KL0672 from Montreal to Amsterdam was operated by the Audrey Hepburn, which was greeted with a water-cannon salute upon arriving Schipol Airport. Following a few promotional in-country flights, the aircraft will leave the fleet.

Entering service in 1986, the MD-11 is an updated version of the iconic DC-10 built by McDonnell-Douglas, which Boeing absorbed in 1997. Those my age and older may remember the series of spectacular crashes that led to the temporary grounding of DC-10s in the 1970s. The Bangladeshi airline Biman continued to operate DC-10s in passenger service until February of this year. Both models are still used for carrying freight.

All the aircraft types I grew up with are disappearing. The 747 is an endangered species, too, with many operators replacing it with twinjets like the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330. Delta has announced it will retire its 747s by 2017, leaving United as the only American passenger operator. The latest variant, the -800 has only drawn one customer, Lufthansa.

The MD-11 makes its final scheduled passenger flight - USA Today

[Rareboy]

Sic transit .....

[palbert]

And eras continue to pass

[Wanderer95]

I'm really happy to see someone else around here who likes airplanes and know a fair bit of their history. I have never been a fan neither of the MD-11, nor of the DC10 really, I even hate the DC10 because of "its fault" in the Concorde crash from 2000, as my love for the Concorde is beyond words and even maybe beyond what a person should feel for an object However, I understand what you mean and I get your point. I am only 19 years old and I have grown up in the process of airliners substituting their 3-4 engine airplanes with mostly the A330 and the B777, which I am sure are economical, extremely reliable, quiet and safe, but there is something indeed missing and it's really sad that the Queen of the Skies is being retired. Yes Lufthansa managed to get the most out of their 748s and make it work out by sending them to airports that are A380 unfriendly, but I sympathise with about the fact that we are going to see less great airplanes like the 747, the A340 and the MD11, and I'm quite happy that we are not going to see as much A380s as they are sooo damn ugly in my opinion, but I guess in terms of engineering and efficiency it is indeed a milestone.

So yes, sadly eras in aviation go by and we go on to see something new dominating the market, I am sure this is what people from the 60s felt when jets were taking over and less and less props were flying, and you have to admit that those piston engines (the DC3 and the DC4 especially) sound amazingly good and the jet engines sound good, but not as marvelous as the props from the 40-50s. But the thing is that changes had always been made in the positive direction, planes had gone faster, higher and safer whereas today I don't think this is the case because it has all came down to fuel consumption and running costs, there is no room left for style or charisma, and this is just awful, but I guess there aren't many people who are willing to pay more money only so that they fly on a 4 engine airplane instead.

I am actually much more astonished that not even one airline had decided to treat its economy passengers as human beings, it would cost them next to nothing to offer really good and kind service, to offer better food and to take away 6 seats in the back so that people have slightly more space to stretch their legs on long-haul flights.... But once again the sad conclusion is that it's all about money and beauty, style or passion are not taken into a consideration any more, and in fact factors that have landed prematurely not just a few great airplanes

[ShiftyNJ]

I enjoyed of the 747-8i Fanhansa Siegerfieger DH-ABYI returning to Berlin with the World Cup champions. I could swear there was a longer clip. Will really miss the 747.

I never cared much for the DC-10 or MD-11 either. The aft structure with the S-intake on the L-1011 is much more attractive, although I have heard the engine change on a DC-10 was easier.

I was and am a big Pan Am fan, and thus the 747 has always been my favorite. I wish they had survived long enough to need the the -300 or -400. I agree about the A380, even though it is bigger it reads like a big tubby baby. Although it says bad things about our domestic industry, I'm kind of glad none of the American carriers wanted them. I would like to experience it sometime, though.

Our mostly domestic carrier jetBlue did kind of what you described. They got rid of some seats to go from 4 FAs to 3, and added room to each row... more if you want to pay a markup, but I find the regular seats give you plenty of space. They don't serve meals unless you buy it, but you can check your first bag for free and I find they are generally less cattle-class than the three major carriers, at least for those of us who don't fly enough to be elite.

[Wanderer95]

I am not very well aware of what exactly is the airline climate in the US as I am from Europe, it's not like I haven't flown in the US, but I have much more flying on the Old Continent. What you describes indeed sounds like what I want to see from airlines, but I want to see the glamour of flying back. You said that you remember the awful crashes of the DC10s from the 70s (the unlocking and pressurizing problems), so I'd assume that you have seen and know how glamorous it had been to flown back then and in the 60s - Pan Am with their fancy 707s going all around the Globe, serving amazing food and having such beautiful crews It created the so-called Jet Set and it pushed airlines to make air travel possible for common people too... And thus flying was an amazing experience and the aviation world was one of asstonishment and beauty, while today for most people it is just this awful experience that they have to go through in order to reach their holiday destination or in order to go to their business meeting. And yes their is beauty in aviation even today, their is Airliners.net and Facebook pages full of stunjing photos and videos by pilots, but this is appreciated only by people who are part of the aviation world anyway, whether they will be pilots, ATC or spotters; for the general public the magic is gone and that is so sad if you think about for how many centuries and millenniums people had dreamt of flying, how many engineers had had sleepless nights in the aim of making possible for planes to go faster, higher and much safer, and now we just shrug our arms and take it for granted. Just think about how far humans went between November 1903 when the Wright brother flew for a few feet and the Summer of 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. Or it's equally astonishing that in the 40s people were struggling to go supersonic and in 1969 we had the Concorde, which flew at twice the altitude of other jets, it flew at Mach 2.02 instead of 0.8, carried more than 100 passengers in absolute comfort and they didn't even have enough time to get drunk from all the champagne onboard, but that era also came to an end.

But coming back to the MD11 and DC10, I don't think it will be any time soon that they will disappear from the skies. While passenger flights might be done in smaller jets that offer more efficiency, freight flights will still need to be done in the rather big and chunky gas-guzzlers like them, the A340 and the 747. Yes it will be harder to fly on a 747 in a few years unless you go Lufthansa or Iranian airlines but the Queen will live on carrying cargo where the 77F won't be able to go, and we can see this by the fact that Airbus are not sure if they finally want to bother with a freighter versions of the A330 or the A380, there are just too much airplanes that cargo companies can buy cheaply that it wouldn't be sensible to go for anything new, so all the 744s and MD11s that have less cycles will end up with cargo very soon and we will be seeing them around for sure, so their legacy will live on for a little bit more for now, but I have absolutely no idea what will happen in 10 -15 years when these airplanes have reached their full limits. I don't see anyone being able to carry as much stuff with the 777 or the A330, and we are for sure not going to see anyone sell their A380 or B748 before they have been able to use them fully and they have almost no cycles left...

It's going to be two interesting decades for sure