Paul Lewis/SINGAPOREMax Kingsley-Jones/LONDON
An Omega Air-led consortium has reached an agreement to purchase Japan Airlines' (JAL) entire fleet of 20 McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40s, for sale or lease and possible conversion into freighters.
NI Aircraft Leasing, a subsidiary of Japan's Nissho Iwai, has acquired the rights to the 20 tri-jets on behalf of Ten Forty, a special-purpose company headed by Omega Air of Ireland. The ´20 billion ($170 million) deal includes the sale of nine spare Pratt & Whitney JT9D-59A engines.
The sale covers 12 DC-10s owned by JAL, with the remainder operated by subsidiaries - Japan Asia Airways (JAA) has four aircraft and Japan Air Charter (JAZ) eight. The first two tri-jets will be phased out by the end of this financial year, another three by 2000 and the remainder by 2005.
"We will offer them for sale or lease and configure the aircraft as the customer wishes," says Omega sales director Desmond McEvaddy. The company has held discussions with McDonnell Douglas and Aeronavali on converting the DC-10s into freighters, and has two slots open for this year if a customer can be found.
The Dublin-based leasing company is also looking at the possibility of equipping the aircraft with its in-flight refuelling kit for use by air forces on a power-by-the-hour basis. Omega and its four Team Inflight Refuelling partners offer a similar deal with Boeing 707s .
JAL's DC-10-40s were all delivered between April 1976 and March 1983, and had clocked up 900,000h and 500,000 flights by the start of this year. Aircraft used on domestic services have no centre main undercarriage and a limited maximum take-off-weight (MTOW) of 202,000kg, but the international fleet has a higher MTOW, of 252,000kg.
According to McEvaddy, Omega has been able to source spare centre gears for the domestic -40s and will be able to increase the aircraft's MTOW to 268,000kg.
JAL and its two subsidiaries, JAA and JAZ, are replacing some of the aircraft with new Boeing 777-200/300s and 767-300s already on order. Local sources suggest that disposal of the DC-10s will probably involve the purchase of additional new aircraft. Boeing is keen to sell JAL more 767-300s, as well as its new stretched -400.
Source: Flight International
