Air India forgot about a Boeing 737 at Kolkata airport for more than 13 years. It has now started its 1,900 km trip to Bengaluru. The plane, registered as VT-EHH, will be used to teach repair workers. It was taken down as part of a bigger attempt to clean up the airport so that new equipment can be put in its place. This is the 14th old plane to be taken away in the last five years.
It has been moved! A Boeing 737-200 had been sitting at Kolkata airport for more than 13 years without being moved. However, this Air India plane has an interesting story.
The registration number VT-EHH plane was taken from the southeast corner of the airport on November 14 and put on a tractor-trailer to start its 1,900-kilometre drive to Bengaluru. It will now be used to train repair workers at the MRO site that Bangalore International Airport Ltd. runs.
The plane was taken away as part of an ongoing effort to get rid of old planes at Kolkata airport to make room for new buildings, such as two planned hangars. VT-EHH was the 14th plane of this type to be taken out of service in the last five years.
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Air India didn’t know it still owned the plane.
The plane was supposed to be thrown away, but airport officials found out that it was still on Air India’s books, which turned a normal event into a strange story. In a private note, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson told workers that the plane was no longer officially known to the company.
It’s not rare to get rid of an old plane, but this one is different because we didn’t even know we owned it until recently! Wilson wrote that the plane had been lost in the airline’s records and institutional memory during the changes that followed Air India’s privatisation three years ago.
This plane was also unique because it was the only one of the ten recently sold Air India planes that was thrown away with its Pratt & Whitney engines still in place. Some had been sold without the engines.
A lengthy service period before being forgotten.
In September 1982, Indian Airlines put VT-EHH into service. When it was leased to Alliance Air in February 1998, it came back to Indian Airlines in March 2007 as a cargo plane. After they merged in August 2007, it became part of Air India’s fleet. After that, the plane worked for India Post until it was taken out of service in 2012 and left to sit at Kolkata Airport.
It costs money to stay for a long time. Kolkata Airport made about ₹ one crore in parking fees from Air India during the 13 years it was closed.
Ten of the airline’s old planes were sold from Kolkata, and many of their fuselages have since been turned into eateries with an aviation theme by private buyers. Four other old planes that were not owned by Air India have also been taken away from the airport.
One of them was a Douglas DC-3 Dakota that had been flown by Biju Patnaik, who was the chief minister of Odisha, during the rescue of Sutan Sjahrir and Mohammad Hatta in 1947. That plane was taken to Odisha, where it was fixed up and put on show for the public at Bhubaneswar airport.
Airport officials say that there are now only two grounded planes left at the airport. Both are ATRs operated by Alliance Air, a government-run airline.
After a three-day trip from an airport apron’s lost spot to the middle of the country, VT-EHH starts a new life in flight. It will now help train engineers instead of taking people.
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