Air India received a surprise parking bill of nearly 10 million rupees (about $120,000) after rediscovering a long-lost Boeing 737-200 that had been quietly sitting in a remote corner of India’s Kolkata Airport for more than a decade — a jet that somehow slipped entirely out of the memory of anyone at the airline.
The aircraft, registered VT-EHH, was taken out of service and parked on a remote pad at Kolkata Airport in 2012. Over the years, staff turnover and record-keeping gaps meant the jet gradually slipped out of the airline’s institutional record-keeping. By the time airport officials contacted Air India and asked that it be removed, the airline initially insisted the aircraft was not theirs.
According to reporting by The Times of India, Air India’s internal audit ultimately confirmed that VT-EHH did belong to the airline, despite being absent from fixed-asset registers and other internal documentation. The confusion appears to have stemmed from administrative lapses dating back to mergers involving Indian Airlines and Air India, as well as the aircraft’s former use as a freighter for India Post.
Kolkata Airport continued to levy standard parking fees throughout the 13-year period the aircraft remained idle. After confirming ownership, Air India arranged for the jet’s removal and paid the parking fee. The aircraft was lifted onto a transport vehicle and moved by road to Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, India, where it will serve as a non-flying training platform for aviation maintenance technicians.
The 43-year-old jet, delivered in 1982, had an unusually long and varied career. It flew for Indian Airlines, later operated for Alliance Air on lease starting in 1998, returned for cargo operations in 2007, and was last used by India Post before being decommissioned in 2012. As noted by The Times of India, it was also the only retired Air India aircraft among a recent group of 10 that still had its Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines attached at the time of disposal.
Airport officials told Indian media outlets the removal of VT-EHH marks the 14th abandoned aircraft cleared from Kolkata Airport in the past five years.
34 comments
In 13 years Kolkata airport must have sent atleast (13×12) 156 monthly invoices and countless collection call. The bills must have popped up in collection ageing summaries somewhere too. No? Or were they sleeping too?
One must wonder about that. Or was the airport management also UA, which does seem a bit unlikely.
From a security point of view, how did the airport not know whose aircraft it was for 13 years? And are they not supposed to bill parking charges yearly?
You miss place an aircraft for 13 years? I’d hate to see the service records for the rest of the fleet! India Air: No thank you!
India is not that bad, you have to come UK how many errors they making every day. So just do not blame. I am not say this because I am patriotic to our country. Every cvil servants makes mistakes. So take it and enjoy the crack
13 years. But to be fair. The airport should have been chasing the airline. My major concern, which no one has said yet. Was it still certified for use by India, or had it been removed from the registry of certified aircraft.
According to other US’ NTSB, who assist in air incidents, especially crashes, involving US made aircraft around the world (even China and Russia), Air India’s attention to safety regs and maintenance has improved greatly in recent yrs, and that does show in investigation outcomes as well. How they managed to “lose” an entire plane for over a decade, and the airport at which it was “hiding out” failed to be aggressively pursuing its fees for that long as well, is a mystery. Generally a plane, even if left somewhere for emergency maintenance or repair, is aggressively monitored to get it back in the air making money, and nobody just parks a plane somewhere for no reason, for extended periods of time.
You would think the airport would bill parking yearly.
But this is Kolkata we’re talking about. Every part of the city screams useless and inefficient
This shows the manner in which our national assets were kept. Andbthen came the Tatas. And how cone they too didnt take an inventory of assets they were buying. All these transactions are shams, facilitated by donayions and bribes !!
First up all I salute Modiji for privatisation of white Elephant AIR INDIA in TATA’s hand. Then Tata did a good job that Thrash all SOMPERI, IRRESPONSIBLE, KAMCHORE, LAZY Employees from AIR INDA, Every Nations have a National carreer and it is running on profit.
In our country, it is running in loss many decades because response employees from Top to Bottom.
This Boeing 737 incident was the example of one of the incident.
An Ex VISTARA employee.
Pity. Shame. But no surprise what corruption irresponsible attitude and laziness can lead to.
Good that the Tatas are there and maybe Air India would fly a new horizon. Eventually.
Mr Mathew, can’t the same aircraft be used for passenger Travels on regular basis? Such type of aircraft can carry how many passengers, Mr.Mathew, any idea? Approximate.
By today’s standards, a -200 is a gas hog, and those old P&W engines would never pass current emissions’ regulations. Further, to return an aircraft with that much downtime without maintenance to an airworthy condition would far outweigh the value of the airframe.
Actually, not “every nation” has, or ever had, a state owned airline. The US owned and operated airlines are and have always been private businesses, a fact that made it difficult for them to compete against foreign owned airlines that were state owned and financed. By contracting for US owned lines to carry US airmail, which was, in fact, the earliest service for “airlines” in the US, the gov’t did ad them, but it never full supported, or even partially owned, them. US military does have passenger carrying capacity, but that’s strictly limited to active duty military, or gov’t officials flying on the gov’t’s business.
The Onion could not do better than this!!! HYSTERICAL!!!!
It is at or about 3 -4 yrs since Tata management took over Airindia with all its assets & losses. It is said airport authority in Kolkata is raising monthly ( probably) parking fees with Tata AirIndia. How was it at either ends the fact of non- settlement was left unnoticed. Further there should be both internal audit to check receipt & pending. All in All total monumental failure.
It’s all about invoice financing.
Indeed.
Mera Bharat Mahan!! I am not surprised at all!! It’s a system failure. Tata has bought the Air India as they have sentimental value attached to it and that is the reason they have even considered to pay are. 1 and coconut to Govt while buying entire liability🫣
Only lord Rama can save this country now. Thousands are stranded nationwide today due to Indigo staffers strike. No one has any information. No notifications, no information whatsoever. Just returned home after spending a night at the airport. Worried about flyers who had multiple connections. Wonder who is running the country..
Sir, we are not ready to fight the wrongs going on. We want some Avatar to correct the situation. This is not how we have to approach any problem personal or govt ( local bodies 2 Union govt)
Strokes among various groups of employees hit every airline, at least in non-communist nations, whether state Ned or private corporations, that same way, and have done as long as I can remember (which goes back to the ’50s, because such strikes affected my family directly). It’s exclusive to no one, and none has, in all those decades, come up with a functional workaround for it. I recall 1 time when SWA tried having executive staff continue flights during a strike, but they were short crews and in the long run it didn’t work either, really. I rather doubt any deity is going to fix that problem for us.
Pity. Shame. But no surprise; knowing what corruption irresponsible attitude and laziness can lead to. Good that PM Modi privatised it and now it’s in the hands of the great Tatas. Hope the same AI will fly a new horizon. Eventually.
I PRAY AI never takes over cockpits! I can’t think of a more surefire ay to get people killed! Already computer-controlled panes are showing the problem! Not having an experienced human able to run control surfaces in a crisis has already figured heavily in quite a few deadly crashes that should never have happened, and in others that might have been controlled crashes with survivability, instead of deadly for all on board! I’ve been following rash investigation reports for many decades. And yes, humans do make mistakes, but they still have 1 great advantage over computers: humans can take past experiences, combine them and extrapolate from them to form a plan to try to salvage a bad situation; computers can only do what was programmed in. There are many examples of that in both military and civilian aircraft incident annals.
System Failure? Mismanagement? Improper management of change? Incompetent people managing a flag carrier? If one of them gets a brutally honest answer including the root cause, probably we could move to part 2 to further assess the situation and maybe get a preventive action.
$120K ? The aircraft with the engines and other major components would be worth Millions of $. What’s the big deal ? Tata Man is lucky to regain this asset irrespective of the costs paid. Let them tell me and I will take over this aircraft and pay the airport parking charges.
To summarise the episode, these asset management blokes and the CCU AI Staff at the present air india are a bunch of blind idiots who ignored a livery painted asset for the past 4 years.
Could only happen in Kolkata – the most useless city in India. After not even knowing that there’s a huge jet in their own airport, they decide to cover up their negligence with billing.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will someday be found, parked on an Indian Airport….We forgot about it…🤣🤣🤣
I should not be laughing at this since what happened to MH 370 was a tragedy but your comment is hilarious!!! 🙂
How do you even misplace an airplane?
Like… bro, this isn’t a pair of socks. It’s not your missing TV remote.
It’s a full-size flying metal tube
Air India really said:
“Oops, where did we keep that 200-ton machine again? Check under the bed? Behind the sofa?”
Meanwhile the airport is out here like a confused security guard:
“Uh, sir… it’s been 13 years… your plane is still parked here. We’re charging rent now. Kindly vacate.”
Imagine the hangar staff:
Day 1: “Whose plane is this?”
Day 365: “It’s still here.”
Year 5: “Should we… tell someone?”
Year 10: “At this point the plane pays more rent than half our tenants.”
Year 13: “Air India, please. Come and collect your lost child.”
Air India:
“Oh THAT plane? We thought we left it at the mall.”
Honestly, losing a plane for 13 years is next-level organizational skill.
Even your WhatsApp group admin is more responsible.
Build an Air India Museum near Bengaluru Airport
UNBELIEVABLE STORY
Having lived and worked in India, I am.in no way surprised, forvsuch behabpviour in any ” national/ government or former government organisations..Working with their Navy, i had to talk to Commander ( Major equivalent) for anyone to take responsibility for events or to make things happen, same on electronics development programs. And same with my inputs on safety issues in workshops and laboratories. So that someone clerical staff ” lose” an aircraft, or ignores parking invoices for a ” lost” aircraft, is not unexpected.