How a 1982-era Boeing Became a Ghost Plane at Kolkata Airport

Photo Credits: Times of India

Air India recently discovered a 43-year-old Boeing 737-200 parked at the Kolkata Airport more than a decade. The aircraft was still listed in the airline’s records, yet there was no trace of its actual existence.  

The jet had been parked at Kolkata Airport since 2012 and was finally hauled out of its unintended hibernation by a tractor-trailer and sent to Bengaluru, where it will be used to train maintenance engineers. 

It was the 14th abandoned aircraft cleared from the airport. 

Campbell Wilson, the chief executive officer of Air India, revealed the massive oversight in an internal note sent to staff, admitting that the airline was unaware of the aircraft until Kolkata Airport authorities alerted them. 

The aircraft had somehow vanished from the airline’s ledgers and faded from its institutional memory during years of poor documentation and the privatisation process. 

The jet was also unusual for another reason: it was the only one of ten defunct Air India aircraft sold with its Pratt & Whitney engines still attached. 

The authorities at the Kolkata Airport made the equivalent of around 111,000 USD in parking charges from Air India for the 13 years the aircraft occupied the parking space. 

The aircraft had entered service with Indian Airlines in 1982, later joined Alliance Air on lease in 1998, returned to Indian Airlines in 2007 for cargo operations, and was transferred to Air India during the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India. 

India Post was its last user before it was decommissioned in 2012 and deregistered in 2013