DHL International Aviation ME

The airline began dedicated cargo flights between Bahrain and Riyadh in 1979 with a Fokker F27 Friendship. In 1980, with demand for a reliable overnight service increasing, the Fairchild Metro were introduced. With its fast cruising speed of 250 knots, this aircraft proved to be ideal for this type of service and destinations soon expanded to include Dubai, Kuwait and Jeddah. In 2004, larger jet aircraft were introduced with the deployment of 6 Boeing 727s. The Middle East is today connected into DHL's network via dedicated long haul flights from the US, Europe and Asia.

Current fleet

As of August 2025, DHL International Aviation ME operates the following aircraft:

Former fleet

DHL International formerly operated the following aircraft:

Boeing 727-200F

Boeing 757-200PCF

Accidents and incidents

2002 Überlingen mid-air collision: On July 1, 2002, DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757-200PF (registered as A9C-DHL) was flying from Bergamo, Italy, to Brussels, Belgium. The aircraft was flying over southern Germany when it collided with a BAL Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev Tu-154M on a charter flight from Moscow, Russia to Barcelona, Spain, over the city of Überlingen near the German-Swiss border. The DHL plane's vertical stabilizer slammed into the fuselage of the Tu-154. The collision killed the 2 crew members on board the Boeing 757, and all 69 passengers and crew on the Tupolev, mostly Russian schoolchildren from Bashkortostan on a vacation, organized by the local UNESCO committee, to the Costa Dorada region of Spain.