What Happened To United Airlines’ Lockheed L-1011 ‘TriStar’ Aircraft?
United Airlines sold its TriStars after only flying them a short time.
Today we will look at United Airlines’ short-lived history of operating the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. In the article, we will look at how United Airlines acquired the Lockheed L-1011s, why they only had them for a short time, and what became of them later.
Before we get into the history of United Airlines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar aircraft, let’s first look at the plane and see why Lockheed built it in the first place. During the 1960s, American Airlines sought a plane that could carry 250 passengers between the East and West Coasts.
Lockheed wanted to build airliners again
At the time, the last civilian airliner built by Lockheed was the L-188 Electra turboprop. Since then, the jet age took off, with the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 being the aircraft airlines wanted to buy.
Having suffered a few setbacks with its military aircraft, Lockheed was keen to get back into the civilian marketplace and build a small midrange widebody passenger jet. Lockheed’s answer was the three-engine L-1011 TriStar. Meanwhile, rival Douglas had also been approached by American Airlines and came up with the Douglas DC-10.
The DC-10 sold for less than the TriStar
Douglas used technology from its DC-8 to save money, while Lockheed developed an entirely new plane using the latest technology. The problem for Lockheed was that its aircraft cost much more than the DC-10, which led American Airlines to order the latter rather than the TriStar. Despite losing out to Douglas with American, orders for the TriStar were placed by Trans World Airlines (TWA) and Eastern Airlines.
The TriStar made its maiden flight on November 16, 1970, and entered service with Eastern Air Lines in April 1972. Ultimately, the DC-10 won the battle, and Lockheed stopped building the aircraft in 1984 after manufacturing 250 aircraft.
After a long history stretching back to 1927, Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) began to struggle financially in the 1970s due to a rise in the price of oil. The problems continued to grow, yet Pan Am thought it could ride out the storm by modernizing its fleet. In 1980 Pan Am began taking delivery of 12 Lockheed TriStars.
This proved challenging as the new airliner increased the airline’s training and maintenance costs. By the mid-1980s, Pan Am needed to raise cash to offset some of its debts and sold its slots at Narita International Airport (NRT) in Tokyo, Japan.
United Airlines buys Pan Am’s Narita slots and a few aircraft
Chicago-headquartered United Airlines was interested and made a deal that included several DC-10 and TriStar aircraft. The sale was completed in February 1986, giving United the Tokyo airport slots plus six Lockheed L-1011 TriStar’s and Pan Am’s Pacific fleet of Boeing 747SPs. By 1986 United Airlines was flying to 13 destinations in Asia from its Narita hub.
United Airlines TriStars were:
- N511PA: Delivered to Pan Am in March 1981
- N510PA: Delivered to Pan Am in April 1981
- N501PA: Delivered to Pan Am in July 1981
- N512PA: Delivered to Pan Am in November 1981
- N513PA: Delivered to Pan Am in November 1981
- N514PA: Delivered to Pan Am in December 1981
Unfortunately, United Airlines was never pleased with the TriStars, and in 1988, sold N501PA, N510PA, N512PA, N513PA, and N514PA to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines. The last remaining United Airlines TriStar N511PA was sold to Germany’s LuftTransport-Unternehmen (LTU).
Sources: Planespotters.net
