Airline’s lost plane found after 13 years – with a huge parking bill

How does a 30-tonne, 30-metre-long Boeing passenger jet go missing for well over a decade? Surely in today’s high-tech, hyper-surveilled and bureaucratic world, such a scenario is impossible. Apparently not.

The case of the misplaced plane is just the latest revelation to hit Air India, the beleaguered South Asian carrier that has already been in the headlines following a tragic crash earlier this year.

Now comes the news that this longstanding airline somehow managed to leave one of its old Boeing passenger jets, a 737-200 registered as VT-EHH, gathering dust in Kolkata Airport for 13 years, having completely forgotten it owned it in the first place.

In fact, when Air India was first contacted about the parking fees for the plane, it denied ownership. But now the airline has finally admitted that it had indeed managed to lose track of the offending plane, and is thus responsible for paying the 10 million rupees (about $168,000) parking bill that it has accrued over the past decade.

An aircraft’s life cycle

To state the obvious, this isn’t the sort of thing that usually happens to airlines – for equally obvious reasons. The economics of a modern airline mean that planes generally spend as much time in the air as possible, and are only really grounded when they absolutely need to be. If you’re going to spend more than $200 million on a passenger jet, you don’t want to leave it stationary where it might develop problems (planes are, after all, designed to be in the air).

Planes don’t tend to get retired all that often. Most jetliners will usually spend at least 10 years in service with their original airline, after which they may even be sold on to smaller airlines in developing countries (though that happens less regularly these days). Alternatively, older jets can be repurposed into cargo planes, where they can sometimes fly for another 20 years.

As a last resort, old planes can be sold on to companies who specialise in breaking them down and selling the individual parts. Hence those slightly haunting images of plane “graveyards” in places like Arizona, where they are eventually stripped down into their individual components.

Follow the paper (plane) trail

Even leaving aside the numerous business reasons for not letting a plane rust away in an airport parking lot, there are also practical reasons why such a situation is unlikely. As you might expect, airlines have plenty of paperwork when it comes to their hardware, much of which has to be refiled on an annual basis to ensure that planes remain fit to fly.

“Given the regulatory oversight, it’s hard to comprehend that an airline could ever ‘lose’ an aircraft,” says aviation industry expert John Strickland, founder of JLS Consulting. “Things like maintenance and individual component serial numbers would need to be clearly documented.”

Though of course that would require Air India to have had the particular plane on their inventory in the first place.

Some analysts have pointed out that the plane’s orphan status could have resulted from its slightly confusing history. For a start, the plane had originally been registered as belonging to Indian Airlines, another state-owned airline that was eventually merged with Air India back in 2007. Following the merger, the plane was leased out to the Indian postal service to work as a cargo plane. Maybe the paperwork got lost somewhere during the changeover?

New Zealand-born Campbell Wilson, Air India’s chief executive, claimed the plane had been missed off the ledger when Air India was privatised back in 2022. If the plane wasn’t included on the records at the time, the new company wouldn’t have known it had even acquired it – and would thus have ignored any letters from the Kolkata Airport revenue department.

Could the plane have been put to better use? Almost certainly.

The fact that the jet had already been fitted out for cargo flights would suggest it could have been used for that purpose. Failing that, it could have been sold for parts. That said, the sale would have been unlikely to make much difference to Air India’s bottom line.

“The aircraft itself is an old one with negligible value,” says John Strickland. “It might have been useful for salvage of materials, but little or nothing more.” Though presumably that is still better than having to settle a 13-year storage bill.

Are there any lessons for other airlines around the world? On the one hand, the “lost” passenger jet does appear to be a one-off – with no other recorded incidents of airlines losing planes in this way. On the other hand, Kolkata Airport has reportedly claimed to have found other “abandoned” planes over the past decade – so this may not be the last time we hear about the strange story of a forgotten plane.

The Telegraph, London

Sign up for the Traveller newsletter

The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.