Lost from memory, omitted from documents, Air India finally sells an old Boeing 737-200 plane

Mumbai, Nov 21 (PTI) Lost from memory, omitted from many documents and over three years after the privatisation of Air India, a more than four-decade-old Boeing 737-200 aircraft of the airline was finally sold last week.

The cargo aircraft, grounded since 2012, later decommissioned and meant for the use of India Post, was all these years at a remote parking bay at the Kolkata airport till the Tata Group-owned Air India was asked to remove the plane.

On Friday, Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson told employees that the airline did not even know it owned such an aircraft until recently.

Last week, the airline completed the sale and transfer of a B737-200 aircraft (VT-EHH), which had been grounded since 2012. "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!" he said in a message to the staff.

Many years before privatisation, Wilson said this aircraft had been decommissioned in order to operate for India Post and was omitted from many documents.

"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!" he added.

Information available on the aircraft tracking website planespotters.net showed that VT-EHH is more than 43.2 years old and was delivered to Indian Airlines in September 1982. The plane was leased by Alliance Air in February 1998 and returned to Indian Airlines as a freighter in July 2007.

Then, in August 2007, the aircraft came to Air India.

Under government ownership, Indian Airlines was merged with Air India in 2007, and Air India was acquired by the Tata Group in January 2022. PTI IAS RAM BAL BAL