AI finally sells an old Boeing 737-200 plane

Mumbai: More than three years after Air India’s privatisation, the airline has finally sold a Boeing 737-200 that had been forgotten for years and left parked in a remote corner of Kolkata airport.

The over four-decade-old cargo aircraft, grounded since 2012 and later decommissioned for proposed India Post operations, remained at the airport until authorities recently asked the Tata Group-owned airline to remove it.

Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson told employees on Friday that the airline was unaware it even owned the aircraft until it was flagged by Kolkata airport officials. “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 said.

He said the plane had been decommissioned long before privatisation and omitted from several documents, eventually slipping out of memory. After confirming ownership, Air India completed the sale and transfer of the aircraft (VT-EHH) last week, clearing what Wilson described as “another old cobweb from our closet”.

According to aircraft-tracking website planespotters.net, VT-EHH is over 43 years old. Delivered to Indian Airlines in 1982, it was later leased to Alliance Air and returned as a freighter before moving to Air India in 2007, the year Indian Airlines merged with the national carrier.