Airplanes are multi-million-dollar assets that aren’t usually forgotten about, but that’s exactly what happened to one Boeing 737-200 belonging to Air India that the carrier didn’t even realize it owned until frustrated airport officials told the airline to remove the plane from its airfield.
It did, however, take Kolkata Airport some time to lose patience with Air India, allowing the disintegrating plane to sit idle in a remote parking bay for 13 years before gently reminding Air India about the aircraft.
The revelation came in an internal note from Air India’s chief executive Campbell Wilson, who shared the story of the neglected Boeing 737.
The aircraft (registration: VT-EHH) was delivered to what was then Indian Airlines in 1982. Fast forward to 2007, when Indian Airlines merged with Air India, and the aircraft changed ownership before being forgotten about a few years later.
“Though disposal of an old aircraft is not unusual, this one is – for it’s an aircraft that we didn’t even know we owned until recently,” Wilson explained in the internal memo.
Although the plane appears to have long been forgotten about, the trail went completely dead during the recent privatisation of Air India.
It wasn’t until airport officials reminded Air India of the aircraft that airline workers started to look into the ownership of the plane and concluded that it did, indeed, belong to Air India.
Given the scale of transformation work taking place at Air India, it’s difficult to be harsh on the carrier, forgetting about what Campbell described as an “old cobweb from the past.”
Despite all the work going into transforming Air India, the carrier is still facing significant headlines – the first-ever fatal crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner in June, along with continuing Pakistan airspace restrictions, are weighing on Air India’s recovery.
