Originally Posted by Adam Smith

FedEx has spacing issues at MEM that don't necessarily apply to AC and others. Such as UPS, which fit all of its 767s with winglets a few years ago. FedEx also uses its 767s mostly for shorter routes where the added weight of winglets is less worthwhile, since fuel savings are shorter.

AC, on the other hand, seems to be planning to run a lot of intercontinental flights with its 763s, where winglets will be much more useful. Then again, their PR image of a cargo 763 doesn't have any winglets. But I doubt AC is worried about FedEx's gate spacing issues on the FedEx ramp at MEM.

It's possible to remove the winglets (see this FedEx aircraft that had winglets before they bought it). But there's a cost to that.

So I could see this going three ways:

• Remove winglets from the aircraft that have them, due to extra weight outweighing (ha ha) aerodynamic efficiency
• Add winglets to aircraft that don't have them, because AC will be flying lots of long sectors
• Just leave them as-is because neither option above is better enough to justify the cost of adding or removing them (AC did add winglets to a bunch of the 763s they rouged, but a bunch of them stayed winglet-less, for whatever reason)