Northwest Airlines is accelerating the retirement of its McDonnell Douglas DC-10s under a new fleet reorganisation plan. The final 12 DC-10s will be retired by January, replaced by new Airbus A330s and three leased Boeing 747-400s that Northwest had returned to lessors under a previous fleet restructuring.
Northwest’s DC-10s are currently used on three transatlantic routes, a service from Amsterdam to Mumbai, and some flights to Japan from Honolulu, Hawaii. The accelerated DC-10 retirement plan begins this week when the Honolulu-Osaka, Japan daily flight will be served by a 747-400. Northwest began DC-10 operations in 1972 with a Pratt & Whitney JT9D-powered -40, adding the General Electric CF6-50-powered -30 in 1989. The fleet peaked in 2001 at 45 DC-10s – 24 -30s and 21 -40s. The last DC-10 service is to depart from Honolulu on 7 January next year and land at Northwest’s Minneapolis/St Paul hub the next day.
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Source: Flight International
