Key Points
- Air India lost track of a Boeing 737 for 13 years at Kolkata airport.
- CEO admitted the airline forgot it owned the plane, discovered after airport's removal request.
- Air India paid $110,000 in parking fees; plane now used for training in Bengaluru.
A Boeing 737 aircraft would seem like something quite difficult for someone to lose, but one major airline appears to have done just that, misplacing one of its aircraft for over a decade until recently finding it.
Air India recently admitted that it lost track of one of its Boeing 737 aircraft for 13 years until it found it last month in a remote parking bay at an airport.
Lost 737 Aircraft
According to a report from The Independent, an Air India Boeing 737-200 cargo plane was parked at Kolkata airport when it was decommissioned back in 2012. However, it then totally disappeared from the airline’s records.
Naturally, since the aircraft was parked in the lot, authorities at the airport continued to levy parking fees for the plane, issuing invoices to Air India. However, the airline continually disputed those charges, indicating that it had no record of the plane even existing.
However, when the airport issued a formal request for Air India to remove the aircraft as it made room for new hangars, the airline admitted its mistake.
Air India Found the ‘Missing’ Aircraft
In an internal message to its staff, India Air CEO Campbell Wilson admitted the mistake, claiming that the airline did not even know that it owned the plane as it was “repeatedly left out of internal records.”
“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 via The Independent.
“Over time, it was lost from memory and only came to light when our friends at Kolkata airport informed us of its presence in a (very) remote parking bay and asked us to remove it! After verifying that it was indeed ours, we’ve now done so – and in so doing removed another old cobweb from our closet.”
The airport ultimately recovered about $110,000 worth of parking fees that had accumulated over the years, with Air India confirming that it had agreed to pay its dues.
The plane was then removed on Nov. 14 and transported by road to Bengaluru, where it will be repurposed for ground-based engineering training.
All in all, it’s certainly an odd situation for a plane to have been truly misplaced like this, but it sounds like it all worked out in the end with everyone taking proper responsibility for the mistake and making it right.
About the author
Kevin Harrish
News Writer, Men's Journal