Air India Parked a 737, Then Forgot About It for 13 Years

Air India just got a reminder that nothing is ever really lost: The airline learned it had racked up a 13-year parking tab for a Boeing 737 it apparently forgot it owned. The 43-year-old 737-200, tail number VT-EHH, was parked on a remote pad at Kolkata Airport in 2012 and then effectively vanished from the airline's working memory, according to the Times of India and AeroTime.

Staff turnover, spotty records, and the airline's 2022 privatization apparently led to the aircraft dropping off Air India's fixed-asset list entirely. When Kolkata airport officials recently asked Air India to clear the plane, the airline initially said it wasn't theirs. An internal audit eventually confirmed the jet did, in fact, belong to Air India, which then agreed to pay nearly 10 million rupees (about $120,000) in accumulated parking charges. The 737 was hoisted onto a transporter and moved by road to Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport, where it will be repurposed as an on-the-ground training platform for maintenance crews.