Air India found a forgotten 43-year-old Boeing 737 at Kolkata Airport after it vanished from official records
AIR INDIA recently uncovered a Boeing 737 that had been absent from its official documentation for over a decade, highlighting significant administrative shortcomings from its pre-privatisation era.
According to aviation2z.com, the 43-year-old aircraft, sitting abandoned at Kolkata Airport, only came to the airline’s attention when airport authorities requested its removal. The discovery prompted internal investigations revealing extensive record-keeping failures during the state-owned period.
The jet, bearing registration VT-EHH, is a Boeing 737-2A8F from the “Baby Boeing” series. Originally delivered to Indian Airlines in September 1982, it subsequently served with Alliance Air before undergoing freighter conversion in 2007 to operate cargo services for India Post.
After ceasing operations in 2012, the aircraft was parked in an isolated section of Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport. Rather than following standard retirement procedures involving sale, scrapping, or parts harvesting, the jet simply remained stationary and gradually disappeared from administrative systems.
The oversight was comprehensive: depreciation calculations, insurance policies, maintenance projections, and financial registers all omitted any reference to VT-EHH’s existence.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson informed employees that throughout multiple years preceding the 2022 Tata Group acquisition, VT-EHH was consistently excluded from internal asset tracking systems. Consequently, the aircraft wasn’t factored into privatization valuation calculations.
During the state-ownership period, the carrier lacked the structured fixed-asset management systems that industry-standard airlines employ to monitor depreciation, parking fees, insurance obligations, and maintenance scheduling. Such systems are fundamental for insurers, maintenance planners, and finance departments to assess operational risks and cost exposures.
The financial implications of such lapses ultimately affected taxpayers, as the government absorbed losses during this period when inefficient processes enabled such oversights to continue undetected.
According to aviation records, VT-EHH was stored alongside another vintage aircraft, VT-EGG, at Kolkata Airport. While VT-EGG was eventually transported to Rajasthan for conversion into an aviation-themed restaurant, multiple sources confirm VT-EHH remained at Kolkata throughout its abandonment period.
Following rediscovery, Air India completed the sale and transfer of VT-EHH in November 2024, though specific details regarding the purchaser and transaction value have not been disclosed publicly.
The missing aircraft case coincides with significant financial challenges for Air India’s minority shareholder, Singapore Airlines, which acquired a 25.1% stake following the Vistara merger. Singapore Airlines reported an 82.1% year-on-year decline in second-quarter earnings for FY2026, substantially attributed to Air India’s losses.
For the first half of FY2026, Singapore Airlines recorded S$428 million (RM1.36 billion) in associate losses, contrasting sharply with the S$3.2 million (RM10.1 million) profit from the comparable prior-year period. The airline has committed S$988.9 million (RM3.15 billion) in total financial investment to date, including equity payments and capital injections.
The incident underscores the magnitude of operational transformation required as Tata Group works to modernise Air India’s systems, including IT infrastructure upgrades, vendor contract renegotiations, lease management improvements, and documentation standardisation to align with global aviation industry benchmarks.
