Why FedEx Actually Won’t Let The MD-11 Die Even After Most Airlines Walked Away

When a UPS Airlines MD-11 freighter crashed at Louisville in November 2025, killing fourteen people and triggering an FAA Emergency Airworthiness Directive that grounded every MD-11 in existence, most of the aviation world assumed it was the end. The type was already aging out of service, production had stopped in 2000, and no passenger airline had flown one in years. UPS, which had been planning a phased retirement anyway, accelerated its timeline and walked away from all 27 of its MD-11s within weeks. The crash, it seemed, had simply hastened the inevitable.