Buy some new jets. There are problems being found on a fleet that just isn't aging as well as DC-8s and 727s aged. Solve the pylon issue and some other thing will emerge in another spot that's hard to inspect.

And a plane that makes people take pride in the requirement to be a super pilot; I've seen that game played. In smaller planes it was the MU-2, Piper Aerostar, etc. The pilots of those planes, like the ones flying the MD would take pride that their planes were less forgiving. The implication was they were, somehow, better aviators, so they'd argue to keep crappy equipment on the line. To be fair I did the same thing when I thought I was hot stuff too. They weren't better. I wasn't better. You aren't better.

That cultural nonsense is masking the truth; there's a design flaw, a flaw in design philosophy perhaps. The MU-2 and Aerostar weren't designed for the roles they found in night freight. The MD-11 wasn't designed for the role it finds itself in decades later. Why make it easier to foist sub-par equipment on our crews?

I fly for a third tier company. You guys fly for first tier companies. Why should I be in a newer jet than you? Get new equipment made from fresher metal. Boeing still has the 767 freighter in production.