FedEx has ordered 18 new aircraft, including eight long-range wide bodies and 10 regional aircraft as it seeks to modernize its fleet and drive growth in its international heavy freight business.
The new aircraft include eight Boeing 777 freighters and 10 ATR 72-600F regional freighters. FedEx also recently bought two used 777 freighters from an undisclosed party.
Furthermore, the carrier has revealed that it is pushing back its planned MD-11 retirement from 2028 to 2032 to enable the firm to handle growth in its international economy segment. FedEx previously said that it would retire its ageing MD-11 fleet in 2028 due to plans to focus more on overland transport rather than taking to the skies.
The new aircraft orders enable FedEx to offset last year’s retirement of nine MD-11 and 22 Boeing 757 jets. The airline division has retired 20 MD-11s over the past three years and currently has 37 in service. In terms of the Boeing 777 freighters, the carrier operates 57 currently.
FedEx’s mainline fleet also includes 65 Airbus A300-600RF aircraft, 138 Boeing 767-300F freighters, and around 70 Boeing 757-200(SF) aircraft following the retirement of 22 units in 2024.
Boeing 777s
News of the new Boeing 777 freighters was revealed in FedEx’s third-quarter results. The company noted that it exercised options to purchase the eight additional aircraft in March 2025. Three aircraft are expected to be delivered in 2026 and five in 2027.
“These aircraft are significantly more fuel-efficient per unit than the aircraft types previously utilized, and these expenditures are necessary to achieve significant long-term operating savings and to replace older aircraft,” FedEx noted.
The new aircraft will also help FedEx with its Tricolor initiative, which was launched in late 2023 and has redesigned FedEx’s air network. Purple delivers high priority, high margin volumes through FedEx’s owned fleet; Orange builds “off-cycle” FedEx flights into a network “to build density, decongest hubs, and connect global surface networks,” and White leverages the global airline partner network “as an adaptive capacity layer”.
ATR 72-600F order
