American Trans Air, a well-established charter carrier based in Indianapolis was a DC-10 operator before operating the Lockheed TriStar. In February 1983, the famous aircraft #2 joined the fleet and was later supplemented by a series 40 aircraft from Northwest Airlines. Both aircraft flew the transatlantic charters of the airline, but the DC-10-10 was sold already on December 13th 1985 after the airline noticed that it was impossible to find more used DC-10s on the market for the projected expansion program and so switched to the Lockheed TriStar which was available in larger numbers. The Series 40 aircraft was retained some months but left the fleet in another wise: It burnt out in a fire in Chicago on August 10th 1986. After acquiring several ex-Delta aircraft, he company became a large TriStar-operator and has also 757s and 727-200s in the fleet. Scheduled services to Florida and the Caribbean were also added to the charter network. Heavy financial problems from 2004 on led to a fleet reduction. In 2006, it was decided to replace the TriStars with DC-10s again by acquiring seven former Northwest Airlines aircraft. Five of them will operate the military charter flights while the two other will serve as spare source. However, there are two DC-10s scheduled to be prepared later this year in addition to the six aircraft already flying for ATA.
Following aircraft were operated by or for American Trans Air:
