How Many Planes Does UPS Have? The 2026 Fleet, a Year After It Gave Up the MD-11

UPS flies 274 jets of its own. Its 2025 annual report counted 269 in service on December 31, 2025, and the airline took delivery of five new Boeing 767 freighters in the first half of 2026, its June quarterly filing says.

That number would be 300 if UPS had kept its MD-11s. It grounded all 26 after one crashed at Louisville on November 4, 2025, and then retired them for good.

How Many Planes Does UPS Have?

274 jets that UPS owns or operates itself, as of June 30, 2026. Every one is a Boeing or Airbus freighter. Unlike FedEx, UPS lists no small feeder planes in its own fleet.

That count leaves out a second fleet. On December 31, 2025, UPS also had 221 aircraft flying for it under charters and leases, operated by other airlines. Those carry UPS packages but not UPS crews.

The UPS fleet, type by type

UPS flies five aircraft families. The table follows each one from the end of 2024, before the crash, to mid-2026.

The 767 is now the backbone, more than a third of the fleet. UPS was the launch customer for the 767-300 freighter, and it is still taking delivery of new ones.

The 757-200 is the second pillar, with 75 jets, and UPS was the launch customer for that freighter too. The 52 A300-600 freighters are the only Airbuses in the fleet.

At the top end sit 30 747-8Fs, the biggest freighters UPS flies, plus 13 older 747-400s. UPS is the largest 747-8F operator, part of the story we tell in how many 747s are still flying.

What happened to the UPS MD-11s

On November 4, 2025, UPS Flight 2976, an MD-11F bound for Honolulu, lost its left engine and pylon on takeoff from Louisville and crashed. The NTSB lists the three pilots and 11 people on the ground among the dead, and later reports put the toll at 15.

The NTSB’s preliminary report found fatigue cracks in the left pylon’s aft mount. The FAA issued an emergency airworthiness directive on November 8 that kept every MD-11 on the ground until inspected, and UPS, FedEx and Western Global grounded their fleets that day.

UPS never brought its jets back. On January 27, 2026, it said it had retired all of its MD-11s in the fourth quarter of 2025, taking a $137 million after-tax charge, and that 18 new 767s would replace the lost capacity over 15 months.

The 767 is a smaller plane than the MD-11, so one for one is not a like-for-like swap. Until the new jets arrive, UPS has been paying other airlines for extra lift, which its quarterly filings blame for higher air costs in 2026.

Only two airlines still fly the type, and we explain why in how many MD-11s are still flying. Its full specifications are on our McDonnell Douglas MD-11 page.

Why the numbers differ

Search this question and you will see figures from about 270 to more than 500. Each one counts something slightly different.

About 300: the fleet before the MD-11 retirement

Older pages say UPS has “nearly 300” planes, and they were right at the time. UPS listed 291 at the end of 2024, MD-11s included, and its 2025 table still lists 295 because it shows the 26 retired MD-11s with a footnote.

More than 500: charters counted in

Add the 221 chartered and leased aircraft to UPS’s own 295 and you get 516. Those planes fly UPS packages under other airlines’ certificates, so they come and go with demand: there were 243 a year earlier.

239: what the FAA registry shows

The FAA’s aircraft registry, in its November 2, 2026 file, lists 239 aircraft under United Parcel Service Co. That total still includes 31 MD-11s, because a registration stays until the owner cancels or sells it.

It also misses jets UPS flies. Another 62 freighters with UPS’s “UP” tail-number suffix are registered to a Louisville company named CC & E I LLC, so the registry is a poor way to count the fleet.

How the fleet got here, and where it is going

If the deliveries hold and nothing else retires, UPS ends 2027 at about 287 jets of its own, still fewer than it flew before the crash. That is by design: UPS is cutting its Amazon volume by more than half from 2024 levels, its 10-K says, and it idled eight aircraft for months in 2025 when air volumes fell.

How UPS compares with FedEx

FedEx Express had 700 aircraft on May 31, 2026, more than twice the UPS number. But 317 of those are small feeder planes: Cessna Caravans and SkyCouriers and ATR turboprops.

Count jets only and FedEx has 383 to UPS’s 274. FedEx’s biggest types are the 767 (152) and the Boeing 777F (59), a jet UPS does not fly.

Both fleets live mostly on giant overnight hubs, UPS at Worldport in Louisville and FedEx in Memphis, which is why both cities sit just behind Anchorage on our list of the busiest cargo airports in the US.