[rob74]

"We" are (currently) not flying the MDs you are referring to, and it's questionable if they will ever fly again. And paradoxically the worst hit are not the airlines flying the MD-11, but the cash-strapped firefighting companies who only relatively recently switched to the (now also grounded) DC-10 from much older planes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c61ALDSN-ws&t=335s).

[markus_zhang]

I agree that we are not currently flying MD-11, but that's just because of the November tragedy. I don't think they are going to retire it if not because of it. That is, they retire it out of scare of more tragedy, not because of older age.

[brigade]

MD-11s aren't in commercial passenger service, so it's unlikely they retire it due to a poor reputation.

The huge question is what changes the FAA requires to unground it; if they decide design changes are needed to reduce the risk that an uncontained failure of engine 1 or 3 directly takes out engine 2, that could likely be economically infeasible.