In a quarterly earnings call, UPS CEO Carol Tome said over the past several years, the company has made a “systematic” effort to “modernize” its fleet of airplanes. As part of that, Tome said it "accelerated" and retired all the MD-11 cargo planes in the last business quarter of 2025.
An MD-11 cargo plane is the style plane that crashed into Louisville businesses, shortly after the left engine caught fire and detached. She did not link the retirement of MD-11s to the crash.
“Over the next year or so, we will replace much of that capacity with new, more efficient, Boeing 767 aircraft,” Tome added.
In an ongoing investigation, federal regulators found that Boeing made airlines aware of a defect in the engine mount more than a decade ago. Early evidence they collected suggests the defect with a bearing may have caused the Louisville plane crash.
Bradley Cosgrove, an aviation lawyer representing several victims, said in a statement it's tragic that it takes events like the UPS cargo plane crash for American corporations to take responsibility for their conduct.
“Wrongdoers refuse to exercise due care and are forced to do the right thing to improve a product or take it off of the market completely only after the innocent loss of lives," Cosgrove said.
In the call, UPS also told investors it expects to continue a trend of slashing tens of thousands of jobs as it ends a delivery agreement with Amazon and aims to process more packages with automation.
Investors seemed to like the news as UPS stock rose more than 5% in the hours immediately following the call.
Boeing, who manufactures MD-11s, also had an earnings call Tuesday morning. It beat many experts' expectations for growth.
