A Boeing 737 parked at Kolkata Airport for 13 years [Photo: X]
A 43-year-old Boeing 737 belonging to Air India has become the centre of a surprising aviation story. The aircraft, left forgotten at Kolkata Airport for 13 years, has now created a parking bill of nearly Rs 1 crore.
The long oversight has exposed how years of paperwork delays, mergers, and weak tracking systems can cause massive financial losses. The neglected aircraft, VT-EHH, sat quietly on a taxiway until airport officials recently removed it.
The Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most widely used commercial aircraft. The VT-EHH entered service in 1982 with Indian Airlines. It flew passenger routes for years before moving to Alliance Air in 1998.
After the 2007 merger of Indian Airlines and Air India, it shifted to cargo operations and later served India Post. In 2012, Air India decommissioned the aircraft, ending three decades of flying.
This bizarre case has exposed serious lapses in record-keeping and asset management inside the airline, effectively transforming a retired plane into a costly “ghost asset.”
The massive bill accumulated because the aircraft remained parked on airport land for more than 13 years without proper clearance or movement. Kolkata Airport continued to charge standard parking and space-occupation fees month after month.
Since Air India had lost track of the aircraft in its internal inventory, the dues kept growing. Over the years, this turned into a liability of roughly Rs 1 crore.
VT-EHH rested on a remote taxiway of Kolkata Airport. This area often holds grounded or decommissioned planes awaiting scrapping or relocation. The airport has unintentionally become a graveyard for such aircraft.
In the last five years alone, officials have removed 14 abandoned or “ownerless” aircraft to free up operational space. VT-EHH was among the oldest and most forgotten ones.
The aircraft has been lying at Kolkata Airport since 2012, the year it was taken out of service. Ideally, it should have been moved, sold, or dismantled soon after decommissioning. But the oversight began during the 2007 merger that created the National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL). Asset records were combined, but tracking gaps allowed VT-EHH to disappear from active documentation.
The issue became more visible after the Tata Group took over Air India in 2022. CEO Campbell Wilson revealed the airline had no idea the aircraft still existed, stating, “Disposal of an old aircraft is not unusual.” But no one had any memory or record of this one.
The parking bill built up slowly but steadily over 13 years. Every month, the airport added standard charges. No internal team at Air India reconciled these fees or matched them to the aircraft, as VT-EHH had vanished from the company’s asset list.
The lack of coordination between the airline and the airport allowed the dues to rise unnoticed. The aircraft became an invisible liability until airport authorities began clearing abandoned planes this year.
VT-EHH first flew in 1982 under Indian Airlines, later moved to Alliance Air on lease in 1998, and then became a cargo/freight aircraft in 2007. After the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India, the plane joined Air India’s fleet. It was decommissioned in 2012.
Despite all this history, VT-EHH slipped through internal documentation. It disappeared from fixed-asset registers, insurance logs, maintenance schedules, and depreciation records. Even after the airline was privatized under the Tata Group in 2022, the aircraft remained missing from all official records.
The rediscovery happened only when airport authorities asked Air India to clear out old parked aircraft — and asked, “Who owns this plane?” That triggered an internal audit. As Air India’s CEO, Campbell Wilson, put it:
“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!”
On November 14, Kolkata Airport finally removed VT-EHH and transported it to Bengaluru. It will now be used to train maintenance engineers. But the story has already sparked serious conversations about asset tracking, documentation failures, and the financial impact of long-term neglect.
