Ever forget when your flight is? Most of us have probably been there. Ever forget that you even have a flight coming up? Some of us may have been there. Ever forget that you own an entire cargo airliner, leaving it to rust in a corner of an airport racking up 13 years of parking fees? All of us have definitely been there! And if you work for Air India, that’s not even a joke.
According to the Times of India, the airline only just realized that it has one more Boeing 737 in its fleet than its own records indicated. The twinjet in question is a 43-year-old stalwart, first joining Indian Airlines all the way back in 1982. The cargo plane bounced a bit after that, getting leased to Alliance Air for a few years, then returning to IA, then going to Air India when those two companies merged, then getting leased to India Post, before finally getting decommissioned in 2012. Would you know who that plane belonged to after all that?
Well, Air India certainly didn’t. CEO Campbell Wilson admitted as much in an internal memo, claiming that the culprit was the company’s acquisition by Tata Group in 2022, when the company was privatized out of government ownership. Apparently a lot changes when you switch to the corporate world after 70 years in the public sector. Like, you lose your memory. Even then, that only happened three years ago; this poor plane has been sitting there, unloved and unattended, for 13. What’s your excuse for the first decade, Air India?
What, this old thing?
Just because you forgot you owned a vehicle doesn’t mean you avoid its parking bills. Just ask Richard Harris, the actor who played Dumbledore, about the Rolls-Royce Phantom V he didn’t know he had. Turns out Air India now has to pay about $111,000 for letting its lonely 737 rust in Kolkata’s airport. Apparently it wasn’t that lonely, though, since 13 other abandoned planes have been removed from the airport in just the last five years, and even now there are still two more rusting hulks. Kolkata turned into a mini-airplane junkyard without even meaning to. But this old workhorse isn’t bound for the glue factory. Instead, it will go to Bengaluru for maintenance apprentices to practice on. A dignified end after 13 years of being forgotten.
This isn’t the first time this year that Air India’s record-keeping has come under scrutiny. Its subsidiary, Air India Express, was caught faking safety records in March. One of its pilots also faked his medical records, right before dying of a heart attack (he was in his 30s, no less). Of course, Air India has even bigger problems this year: one of its 787s crashed just after takeoff. Early indications are that the crash was caused by pilot error – or even, possibly, intent. Certainly seems like the airliner has a lot of work to do to put its house in order. Maybe figuring out how many plays it has is a start.
